| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Child of Storm by H. Rider Haggard: his wife, who had borne him a son that one day would be great in the
land. For Saduko, as I have said, had become a "self-eater," and this
day his pride was inflamed by the adulation of the company and by the
beer that he had drunk.
At length Nandie did come, carrying her babe, from which she never would
be parted. In her dignified, ladylike fashion (although it seems an odd
term to apply to a savage, I know none that describes her better) she
greeted first me and then sundry of the other guests, saying a few words
to each of them. At length she came opposite to Masapo, who had dined
not wisely but too well, and to him, out of her natural courtesy, spoke
rather longer than to the others, inquiring after his wife, Mameena, and
Child of Storm |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Perfect Wagnerite: A Commentary on the Niblung's Ring by George Bernard Shaw: cannot be dramatically projected without a pontifical antagonist.
The Young Siegfried led to The Valkyries, and that again to its
preface The Rhine Gold (the preface is always written after the
book is finished). Finally, of course, the whole was revised. The
revision, if carried out strictly, would have involved the cuttmg
out of Siegfried's Death, now become inconsistent and
superfluous; and that would have involved, in turn, the facing of
the fact that The Ring was no longer a Niblung epic, and really
demanded modern costumes, tall hats for Tarnhelms, factories for
Nibelheims, villas for Valhallas, and so on--in short, a complete
confession of the extent to which the old Niblung epic had become
|
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Muse of the Department by Honore de Balzac: time of the financial crisis brought about by the Ministry of the
First of March, as it was called. By thus securing to his wife an
income of forty-eight thousand francs he considered himself no longer
in her debt. Could he not restore the odd twelve hundred thousand as
soon as the four and a half per cents had risen above a hundred? He
was now the greatest man in Sancerre, with the exception of one--the
richest proprietor in France--whose rival he considered himself. He
saw himself with an income of a hundred and forty thousand francs, of
which ninety thousand formed the revenue from the lands he had
entailed. Having calculated that besides this net income he paid ten
thousand francs in taxes, three thousand in working expenses, ten
The Muse of the Department |
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 Mysterious Island by Jules Verne: mementoes of the time when, husband and father, I thought happiness
possible for me, and a collection of pearls gathered by my friends and
myself in the depths of the ocean. Of this treasure at a future day, you
may make good use. In the hands of such men as yourself and your comrades,
Captain Harding, money will never be a source of danger. From on high I
shall still participate in your enterprises, and I fear not but that they
will prosper."
After a few moments' repose, necessitated by his extreme weakness,
Captain Nemo continued,--
"To-morrow you will take the coffer, you will leave the saloon, of which
you will close the door; then you will ascend on to the deck of the
The Mysterious Island |
