| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Soul of Man by Oscar Wilde: rising in a sort of ecstasy from death to life. Even when they
drew him crucified they drew him as a beautiful God on whom evil
men had inflicted suffering. But he did not preoccupy them much.
What delighted them was to paint the men and women whom they
admired, and to show the loveliness of this lovely earth. They
painted many religious pictures - in fact, they painted far too
many, and the monotony of type and motive is wearisome, and was bad
for art. It was the result of the authority of the public in art-
matters, and is to be deplored. But their soul was not in the
subject. Raphael was a great artist when he painted his portrait
of the Pope. When he painted his Madonnas and infant Christs, he
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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 One Basket by Edna Ferber: that had resisted her all these years. Something that had made
him master and superior in spite of everything.
In those days of illness, as he sat by the stove, the memory of
Emma Byers came to him often. She had left that district
twenty-eight years ago, and had married, and lived in Chicago
somewhere, he had heard, and was prosperous. He wasted no time
in idle regrets. He had been a fool, and he paid the price of
fools. Bella, slamming noisily about the room, never suspected
the presence in the untidy place of a third person--a sturdy girl
of twenty-two or -three, very wholesome to look at, and with
honest, intelligent eyes and a serene brow.
One Basket |
