| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Tarzan of the Apes by Edgar Rice Burroughs: Not so with Tarzan of the Apes. From early infancy his
survival had depended upon acuteness of eyesight, hearing,
smell, touch, and taste far more than upon the more slowly
developed organ of reason.
The least developed of all in Tarzan was the sense of taste,
for he could eat luscious fruits, or raw flesh, long buried
with almost equal appreciation; but in that he differed but
slightly from more civilized epicures.
Almost silently the ape-man sped on in the track of Terkoz
and his prey, but the sound of his approach reached the ears
of the fleeing beast and spurred it on to greater speed.
Tarzan of the Apes |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Madam How and Lady Why by Charles Kingsley: because they have used their human instincts and their common
sense, and have obeyed (without knowing it) the warning of a great
and good philosopher called Herder, that "The organ is in no case
the power which works by it;" which is as much as to say, that the
engine is not the engine-driver, nor the spade the gardener.
There have always been, and always will be, a few people who
cannot see that. They think that a man's soul is part of his
body, and that he himself is not one thing, but a great number of
things. They think that his mind and character are only made up
of all the thoughts, and feelings, and recollections which have
passed through his brain; and that as his brain changes, he
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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 Vendetta by Honore de Balzac: fastened with mutual ardor on the slightest hope.
One night Ginevra woke and missed Luigi from her side. She rose in
terror. A faint light shining on the opposite wall of the little
court-yard revealed to her that her husband was working in his study
at night. Luigi was now in the habit of waiting till his wife was
asleep, and then going up to his garret to write. Four o'clock struck.
Ginevra lay down again, and pretended to sleep. Presently Luigi
returned, overcome with fatigue and drowsiness. Ginevra looked sadly
on the beautiful, worn face, where toil and care were already drawing
lines of wrinkles.
"It is for me he spends his nights in writing," she said to herself,
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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 Perfect Wagnerite: A Commentary on the Niblung's Ring by George Bernard Shaw: symphonically treated themes for tunes with symmetrical eight-bar
staves and the like, has always been the rule in the highest
forms of music. To describe it, or be affected by it, as an
abandonment of melody, is to confess oneself an ignoramus
conversant only with dance tunes and ballads.
The sort of stuff a purely dramatic musician produces when he
hampers himself with metric patterns in composition is not unlike
what might have resulted in literature if Carlyle (for example)
had been compelled by convention to write his historical stories
in rhymed stanzas. That is to say, it limits his fertility to an
occasional phrase, and three quarters of the time exercises only
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