| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Arrow of Gold by Joseph Conrad: a cigarette and came downstairs slowly. My unhappiness became
dulled, as the grief of those who mourn for the dead gets dulled in
the overwhelming sensation that everything is over, that a part of
themselves is lost beyond recall taking with it all the savour of
life.
I discovered Therese still on the very same spot of the floor, her
hands folded over each other and facing my empty chair before which
the spilled wine had soaked a large portion of the table-cloth.
She hadn't moved at all. She hadn't even picked up the overturned
glass. But directly I appeared she began to speak in an
ingratiating voice.
The Arrow of Gold |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Chita: A Memory of Last Island by Lafcadio Hearn: chose?"
--"Mo pas connin, moin."
She began to play with some trinkets attached to his watch
chain;--a very small gold compass especially impressed her fancy
by the trembling and flashing of its tiny needle, and she
murmured, coaxingly:--
--"Mo oule ca! Donnin ca a moin."
He took all possible advantage of the situation, and replied at
once:--
-- "Oui! mo va donnin toi ca si to di moin to laut nom."
The splendid bribe evidently impressed her greatly; for tears
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| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from A Treatise on Parents and Children by George Bernard Shaw: without a shudder--and wildly clamoring for more clothes to disguise
and conceal the body, and for the abolition of pictures, statues,
theatres, and pretty colors. And incredible as it seems, these
unhappy lunatics are left at large, unrebuked, even admired and
revered, whilst artists have to struggle for toleration. To them an
undraped human body is the most monstrous, the most blighting, the
most obscene, the most unbearable spectacle in the universe. To an
artist it is, at its best, the most admirable spectacle in nature,
and, at its average, an object of indifference. If every rag of
clothing miraculously dropped from the inhabitants of London at noon
tomorrow (say as a preliminary to the Great Judgment), the artistic
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The fourth excerpt represents the element of Earth. It speaks of physical influences and the impact of the unseen on the visible world, and is drawn from Poems by Oscar Wilde: For we did not meet in the holy night,
But in the shameful day.
A prison wall was round us both,
Two outcast men we were:
The world had thrust us from its heart,
And God from out His care:
And the iron gin that waits for Sin
Had caught us in its snare.
III
In Debtors' Yard the stones are hard,
And the dripping wall is high,
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