| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from De Profundis by Oscar Wilde: die. 'Nothing is more rare in any man,' says Emerson, 'than an act
of his own.' It is quite true. Most people are other people.
Their thoughts are some one else's opinions, their lives a mimicry,
their passions a quotation. Christ was not merely the supreme
individualist, but he was the first individualist in history.
People have tried to make him out an ordinary philanthropist, or
ranked him as an altruist with the scientific and sentimental. But
he was really neither one nor the other. Pity he has, of course,
for the poor, for those who are shut up in prisons, for the lowly,
for the wretched; but he has far more pity for the rich, for the
hard hedonists, for those who waste their freedom in becoming
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Rinkitink In Oz by L. Frank Baum: punishment, he met a girl entering by the back way, who
asked:
"Can you tell me where to find Her Majesty, Queen
Cor?"
"She is in the chamber with the red dome, where green
dragons are painted upon the walls," replied Inga; "but
she is in an angry and ungracious mood to-day. Why do
you wish to see her?"
"I have honey to sell," answered the girl, who was
Zella, just come from the forest. "The Queen is very
fond of my honey."
Rinkitink In Oz |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Mayor of Casterbridge by Thomas Hardy: the pavement and the roadway. Moreover every shop pitched
out half its contents upon trestles and boxes on the kerb,
extending the display each week a little further and further
into the roadway, despite the expostulations of the two
feeble old constables, until there remained but a tortuous
defile for carriages down the centre of the street, which
afforded fine opportunities for skill with the reins. Over
the pavement on the sunny side of the way hung shopblinds so
constructed as to give the passenger's hat a smart buffet
off his head, as from the unseen hands of Cranstoun's Goblin
Page, celebrated in romantic lore.
The Mayor of Casterbridge |
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 The Sportsman by Xenophon: seize a boar-spear, and advance; firmly clutching it with the left
hand forward and with the right behind; the left is to steady it, and
the right to give it impulse; and so the feet,[27] the left advanced
in correspondence with the left arm, and right with right. As he
advances, he will make a lunge forward with the boar-spear,[27]
planting his legs apart not much wider than in wrestling,[28] and
keeping his left side turned towards his left hand; and then, with his
eye fixed steadily on the beast's eye, he will note every turn and
movement of the creature's head. As he brings down the boar-spear to
the thrust, he must take good heed the animal does not knock it out of
his hands by a side movement of the head;[29] for if so he will follow
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