| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Soul of a Bishop by H. G. Wells: himself and his wife.
Because they did not leave Lady Ella alone. The Walshinghams
were already unpopular in their county on account of a poverty
and shyness that made them seem "stuck up" to successful captains
of industry only too ready with the hand of friendship, the iron
grip indeed of friendship, consciously hospitable and eager for
admission and endorsements. And Princhester in particular was
under the sway of that enterprising weekly, The White Blackbird,
which was illustrated by, which indeed monopolized the gifts of,
that brilliant young caricaturist "The Snicker."
It had seemed natural for Lady Ella to acquiesce in the
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Intentions by Oscar Wilde: that practical organisation of life that we call society. Society,
which is the beginning and basis of morals, exists simply for the
concentration of human energy, and in order to ensure its own
continuance and healthy stability it demands, and no doubt rightly
demands, of each of its citizens that he should contribute some
form of productive labour to the common weal, and toil and travail
that the day's work may be done. Society often forgives the
criminal; it never forgives the dreamer. The beautiful sterile
emotions that art excites in us are hateful in its eyes, and so
completely are people dominated by the tyranny of this dreadful
social ideal that they are always coming shamelessly up to one at
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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 Ion by Plato: they disagree?
ION: A prophet.
SOCRATES: And if you were a prophet, would you not be able to interpret
them when they disagree as well as when they agree?
ION: Clearly.
SOCRATES: But how did you come to have this skill about Homer only, and
not about Hesiod or the other poets? Does not Homer speak of the same
themes which all other poets handle? Is not war his great argument? and
does he not speak of human society and of intercourse of men, good and bad,
skilled and unskilled, and of the gods conversing with one another and with
mankind, and about what happens in heaven and in the world below, and the
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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 Montezuma's Daughter by H. Rider Haggard: to me.
'Devils,' he said, 'devils set on their work by the chief of all
devils that live upon the earth and shall reign in hell. Hark you,
my son Thomas, there is a country called Spain where your mother
was born, and there these devils abide who torture men and women,
aye, and burn them living in the name of Christ. I was betrayed
into their hands by him whom I name the chief of the devils, though
he is younger than I am by three years, and their pincers and hot
irons left these marks upon me. Aye, and they would have burnt me
alive also, only I escaped, thanks to your mother--but such tales
are not for a little lad's hearing; and see you never speak of
Montezuma's Daughter |
