| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Soul of Man by Oscar Wilde: potential in mankind generally. For the recognition of private
property has really harmed Individualism, and obscured it, by
confusing a man with what he possesses. It has led Individualism
entirely astray. It has made gain not growth its aim. So that man
thought that the important thing was to have, and did not know that
the important thing is to be. The true perfection of man lies, not
in what man has, but in what man is.
Private property has crushed true Individualism, and set up an
Individualism that is false. It has debarred one part of the
community from being individual by starving them. It has debarred
the other part of the community from being individual by putting
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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 Contrast by Royall Tyler: coquetry, and all the other dear things which he knows
I doat upon, that I protest his conversation made me
as melancholy as if I had been at church; and heaven
knows, though I never prayed to go there but on one
occasion, yet I would have exchanged his conversa-
tion for a psalm and a sermon. Church is rather
melancholy, to be sure; but then I can ogle the beaux,
and be regaled with "here endeth the first lesson," but
his brotherly here, you would think had no end. You
captivate him! Why, my dear, he would as soon fall
in love with a box of Italian flowers. There is Maria,
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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 A Simple Soul by Gustave Flaubert: mistress opened her arms and the servant threw herself against her
breast and they hugged each other and giving vent to their grief in a
kiss which equalised them for a moment.
It was the first time that this had ever happened, for Madame Aubain
was not of an expansive nature. Felicite was as grateful for it as if
it had been some favour, and thenceforth loved her with animal-like
devotion and a religious veneration.
Her kind-heartedness developed. When she heard the drums of a marching
regiment passing through the street, she would stand in the doorway
with a jug of cider and give the soldiers a drink. She nursed cholera
victims. She protected Polish refugees, and one of them even declared
A Simple Soul |
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 Gods of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs: hundred of these First Born devils were leaping to the
ground all about me.
"With drawn swords they made for me, but before I went down
beneath them they had tasted of the steel of my father's
sword, and I had given such an account of myself as I know
would have pleased my sire had he lived to witness it."
"Your father is dead?" I asked.
"He died before the shell broke to let me step out into a
world that has been very good to me. But for the sorrow
that I had never the honour to know my father, I have been
very happy. My only sorrow now is that my mother must
The Gods of Mars |
