| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from King Henry VI by William Shakespeare: My heart is turn'd to stone; and while 't is mine
It shall be stony. York not our old men spares;
No more will I their babes; tears virginal
Shall be to me even as the dew to fire,
And beauty that the tyrant oft reclaims
Shall to my flaming wrath be oil and flax.
Henceforth I will not have to do with pity;
Meet I an infant of the house of York,
Into as many gobbets will I cut it
As wild Medea young Absyrtus did.
In cruelty will I seek out my fame.--
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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 Art of Writing by Robert Louis Stevenson: be better if the stream were stayed, and the roll of our old,
honest English books were closed, than that esurient book-
makers should continue and debase a brave tradition, and
lower, in their own eyes, a famous race. Better that our
serene temples were deserted than filled with trafficking and
juggling priests.
There are two just reasons for the choice of any way of life:
the first is inbred taste in the chooser; the second some
high utility in the industry selected. Literature, like any
other art, is singularly interesting to the artist; and, in a
degree peculiar to itself among the arts, it is useful to
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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 The Symposium by Xenophon: to be told[10] that the soul of this fond lover is consumed with
passion for a fair ideal--call it by what name you will--the spirit
blent of nobleness and beauty.[11] See you not what chaste severity
dwells on his brow;[12] how tranquil his gaze;[13] how moderate his
words; how gentle his intonation; now radiant his whole character. And
if he enjoys the friendship of the most holy gods, he keeps a place in
his regard for us poor mortals. But how is it that you alone,
Antisthenes, you misanthrope, love nobody?
[3] Cf. Shelley, "Hymn to Intellectual Beauty":
The awful shadow of some unseen Power
Floats, though unseen, among us. . . .
The Symposium |
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 Walden by Henry David Thoreau: standing advertisement, till forbidden, of the everlasting vigor and
fertility of the world. The morning, which is the most memorable
season of the day, is the awakening hour. Then there is least
somnolence in us; and for an hour, at least, some part of us awakes
which slumbers all the rest of the day and night. Little is to be
expected of that day, if it can be called a day, to which we are not
awakened by our Genius, but by the mechanical nudgings of some
servitor, are not awakened by our own newly acquired force and
aspirations from within, accompanied by the undulations of celestial
music, instead of factory bells, and a fragrance filling the air --
to a higher life than we fell asleep from; and thus the darkness
Walden |
