| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Beast in the Jungle by Henry James: to get there before her. "I met you years and years ago in Rome.
I remember all about it." She confessed to disappointment--she had
been so sure he didn't; and to prove how well he did he began to
pour forth the particular recollections that popped up as he called
for them. Her face and her voice, all at his service now, worked
the miracle--the impression operating like the torch of a
lamplighter who touches into flame, one by one, a long row of gas-
jets. Marcher flattered himself the illumination was brilliant,
yet he was really still more pleased on her showing him, with
amusement, that in his haste to make everything right he had got
most things rather wrong. It hadn't been at Rome--it had been at
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Essays & Lectures by Oscar Wilde: In nature, you must wait for them, watch for them, choose them;
and, if you wait and watch, come they will.
In Gower Street at night you may see a letter-box that is
picturesque: on the Thames Embankment you may see picturesque
policemen. Even Venice is not always beautiful, nor France.
To paint what you see is a good rule in art, but to see what is
worth painting is better. See life under pictorial conditions. It
is better to live in a city of changeable weather than in a city of
lovely surroundings.
Now, having seen what makes the artist, and what the artist makes,
who is the artist? There is a man living amongst us who unites in
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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 St. Ives by Robert Louis Stevenson: man's meaning.
'I do not know, sir, really,' said I; 'but I suppose some of the
prisoners will have escaped.'
'Bedamned!' says he.
'Oh, sir, they will be soon taken,' I replied: 'it has been found
in time. Good morning, sir!'
'Ye walk late, sir?' he added.
'Oh, surely not,' said I, with a laugh. 'Earlyish, if you like!'
which brought me finally beyond him, highly pleased with my
success.
I was now come forth on a good thoroughfare, which led (as well as
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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 The Jolly Corner by Henry James: apprehension, to the sense of his adversary's inscrutable
manoeuvre. That meaning at least, while he gaped, it offered him;
for he could but gape at his other self in this other anguish, gape
as a proof that HE, standing there for the achieved, the enjoyed,
the triumphant life, couldn't be faced in his triumph. Wasn't the
proof in the splendid covering hands, strong and completely spread?
- so spread and so intentional that, in spite of a special verity
that surpassed every other, the fact that one of these hands had
lost two fingers, which were reduced to stumps, as if accidentally
shot away, the face was effectually guarded and saved.
"Saved," though, WOULD it be? - Brydon breathed his wonder till the
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