| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Lord Arthur Savile's Crime, etc. by Oscar Wilde: certain degree, it served his purpose. Still, in spite of
everything, he was not left unmolested. Strings were continually
being stretched across the corridor, over which he tripped in the
dark, and on one occasion, while dressed for the part of 'Black
Isaac, or the Huntsman of Hogley Woods,' he met with a severe fall,
through treading on a butter-slide, which the twins had constructed
from the entrance of the Tapestry Chamber to the top of the oak
staircase. This last insult so enraged him, that he resolved to
make one final effort to assert his dignity and social position,
and determined to visit the insolent young Etonians the next night
in his celebrated character of 'Reckless Rupert, or the Headless
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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 Breaking Point by Mary Roberts Rinehart: To which Bassett grimly returned: "He's probably rather particular
what he bites."
He was uneasily conscious that Gregory, while nervous and tense,
was carrying the situation with a certain assurance. If he was
acting it was very good acting. And that opinion was strengthened
when he threw open the door and Gregory advanced into the room.
"Well, Clark," he said, coolly. "I guess you didn't expect to see
me, did you?"
He made no offer to shake hands as Dick turned from the window, nor
did Dick make any overtures. But there was no enmity at first in
either face; Gregory was easy and assured, Dick grave, and, Bassett
The Breaking Point |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Woman and Labour by Olive Schreiner: direction of increased knowledge and the attainment of new fields of
activity, the better for herself and for the race.
When one considers the part which sexual attraction plays in the order of
sentient life on the globe, from the almost unconscious attractions which
draw amoeboid globule to amoeboid globule, on through the endless
progressive forms of life; till in monogamous birds it expresses itself in
song and complex courtship and sometimes in the life-long conjugal
affection of mates; and which in the human race itself, passing through
various forms, from the imperative but almost purely physical attraction of
savage male and female for each other, till in the highly developed male
and female it assumes its aesthetic and intellectual but not less
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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 Essays & Lectures by Oscar Wilde: any attempt to isolate it in any way from in the progress and
movement and social life of the age that has produced it would be
to rob it of its true vitality, possibly to mistake its true
meaning. And in disengaging from the pursuits and passions of this
crowded modern world those passions and pursuits which have to do
with art and the love of art, we must take into account many great
events of history which seem to be the most opposed to any such
artistic feeling.
Alien then from any wild, political passion, or from the harsh
voice of a rude people in revolt, as our English Renaissance must
seem, in its passionate cult of pure beauty, its flawless devotion
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