| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Hidden Masterpiece by Honore de Balzac: beheld her. Let her be seen?--where is the husband, the lover, so
debased as to lend his wife to dishonor? When you paint a picture for
the court you do not put your whole soul into it; you sell to
courtiers your tricked-out lay-figures. My painting is not a picture;
it is a sentiment, a passion! Born in my atelier, she must remain a
virgin there. She shall not leave it unclothed. Poesy and women give
themselves bare, like truth, to lovers only. Have we the model of
Raphael, the Angelica of Ariosto, the Beatrice of Dante? No, we see
but their semblance. Well, the work which I keep hidden behind bolts
and bars is an exception to all other art. It is not a canvas; it is a
woman,--a woman with whom I weep and laugh and think and talk. Would
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Hunting of the Snark by Lewis Carroll: Recollecting with tears how, in earlier years,
It had taken no pains with its sums.
"The thing can be done," said the Butcher, "I think.
The thing must be done, I am sure.
The thing shall be done! Bring me paper and ink,
The best there is time to procure."
The Beaver brought paper,portfolio, pens,
And ink in unfailing supplies:
While strange creepy creatures came out of their dens,
And watched them with wondering eyes.
So engrossed was the Butcher, he heeded them not,
The Hunting of the Snark |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Alcibiades I by Plato: SOCRATES: There is no subject about which they are more at variance?
ALCIBIADES: None.
SOCRATES: I do not suppose that you ever saw or heard of men quarrelling
over the principles of health and disease to such an extent as to go to war
and kill one another for the sake of them?
ALCIBIADES: No indeed.
SOCRATES: But of the quarrels about justice and injustice, even if you
have never seen them, you have certainly heard from many people, including
Homer; for you have heard of the Iliad and Odyssey?
ALCIBIADES: To be sure, Socrates.
SOCRATES: A difference of just and unjust is the argument of those poems?
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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 Dreams & Dust by Don Marquis: That, full of life and unaware
That earth holds aught of grief or stain,
The fairies stole and hold her where
Death enters not, nor strife nor pain;--
That, drowsing on some bed of pansies,
By Titania's necromancies
Her senses were to slumber lulled,
Deeply sunken, steeped and dulled,
And by wafture of swift pinions
She was borne out through earth's portals
To the fairy queen's dominions,
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