| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Intentions by Oscar Wilde: monstrous and infinite.
ERNEST. Must we go, then, to Art for everything?
GILBERT. For everything. Because Art does not hurt us. The tears
that we shed at a play are a type of the exquisite sterile emotions
that it is the function of Art to awaken. We weep, but we are not
wounded. We grieve, but our grief is not bitter. In the actual
life of man, sorrow, as Spinoza says somewhere, is a passage to a
lesser perfection. But the sorrow with which Art fills us both
purifies and initiates, if I may quote once more from the great art
critic of the Greeks. It is through Art, and through Art only,
that we can realise our perfection; through Art, and through Art
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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 Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde: all should live--undisturbed, indifferent, and without disquiet.
They neither bring ruin upon others, nor ever receive it from alien hands.
Your rank and wealth, Harry; my brains, such as they are--my art, whatever it
may be worth; Dorian Gray's good looks--we shall all suffer for what the gods
have given us, suffer terribly."
"Dorian Gray? Is that his name?" asked Lord Henry, walking across
the studio towards Basil Hallward.
"Yes, that is his name. I didn't intend to tell it to you."
"But why not?"
"Oh, I can't explain. When I like people immensely, I never tell
their names to any one. It is like surrendering a part of them.
The Picture of Dorian Gray |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Odyssey by Homer: already. It was all his doing. It was not that he wanted to
marry Penelope; he did not so much care about that; what he
wanted was something quite different, and Jove has not
vouchsafed it to him; he wanted to kill your son and to be chief
man in Ithaca. Now, therefore, that he has met the death which
was his due, spare the lives of your people. We will make
everything good among ourselves, and pay you in full for all
that we have eaten and drunk. Each one of us shall pay you a
fine worth twenty oxen, and we will keep on giving you gold and
bronze till your heart is softened. Until we have done this no
one can complain of your being enraged against us."
The Odyssey |
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 Across The Plains by Robert Louis Stevenson: Scotland; and it was decided he should take me along with him
around a portion of the shores of Fife; my first professional tour,
my first journey in the complete character of man, without the help
of petticoats.
The Kingdom of Fife (that royal province) may be observed by the
curious on the map, occupying a tongue of land between the firths
of Forth and Tay. It may be continually seen from many parts of
Edinburgh (among the rest, from the windows of my father's house)
dying away into the distance and the easterly HAAR with one smoky
seaside town beyond another, or in winter printing on the gray
heaven some glittering hill-tops. It has no beauty to recommend
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