| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Kenilworth by Walter Scott: "We build on sand then," said Anthony Foster; "for supposing that
she sails away to court in all her lord's dignity and authority,
how is she to look back upon me, who am her jailor as it were, to
detain her here against her will, keeping her a caterpillar on an
old wall, when she would fain be a painted butterfly in a court
garden?"
"Fear not her displeasure, man," said Varney. "I will show her
all thou hast done in this matter was good service, both to my
lord and her; and when she chips the egg-shell and walks alone,
she shall own we have hatched her greatness."
"Look to yourself, Master Varney," said Foster, "you may
Kenilworth |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Apology by Plato: he may instruct you? There can be no reward so fitting as maintenance in
the Prytaneum, O men of Athens, a reward which he deserves far more than
the citizen who has won the prize at Olympia in the horse or chariot race,
whether the chariots were drawn by two horses or by many. For I am in
want, and he has enough; and he only gives you the appearance of happiness,
and I give you the reality. And if I am to estimate the penalty fairly, I
should say that maintenance in the Prytaneum is the just return.
Perhaps you think that I am braving you in what I am saying now, as in what
I said before about the tears and prayers. But this is not so. I speak
rather because I am convinced that I never intentionally wronged any one,
although I cannot convince you--the time has been too short; if there were
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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 Charmides and Other Poems by Oscar Wilde: In that wild throb when all existences
Seemed narrowed to one single ecstasy
Which dies through its own sweetness and the stress
Of too much pleasure, ere Persephone
Had bade them serve her by the ebon throne
Of the pale God who in the fields of Enna loosed her zone.
POEMS
REQUIESCAT
Tread lightly, she is near
Under the snow,
Speak gently, she can hear
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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 Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte by Karl Marx: political power, was irreconcilable with the existence of the bourgeois
republic. The February revolution had forthwith proclaimed direct and
universal suffrage in place of the old law. The bourgeois republic
could not annul this act. They had to content themselves with tacking
to it the limitation a six months' residence. The old organization of
the administrative law, of municipal government, of court procedures of
the army, etc., remained untouched, or, where the constitution did
change them, the change affected their index, not their subject; their
name, not their substance.
The inevitable "General Staff" of the "freedoms" of 1848--personal
freedom, freedom of the press, of speech, of association and of
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