| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Scarlet Pimpernel by Baroness Emmuska Orczy: illusion, lay shattered to earth at my feet."
She need not complain now that he was cold and impassive; his
very voice shook with an intensity of passion, which he was making
superhuman efforts to keep in check.
"Aye! the madness of my pride!" she said sadly. "Hardly had
I gone, already I had repented. But when I returned, I found you, oh,
so altered! wearing already that mask of somnolent indifference which
you have never laid aside until. . .until now."
She was so close to him that her soft, loose hair was wafted
against his cheek; her eyes, glowing with tears, maddened him, the
music in her voice sent fire through his veins. But he would not
The Scarlet Pimpernel |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court by Mark Twain: water to draw, I mean -- and none but monks could
enter the well-chamber. I entered it, for I had tempo-
rary authority to do so, by courtesy of my professional
brother and subordinate. But he hadn't entered it
himself. He did everything by incantations; he never
worked his intellect. If he had stepped in there and
used his eyes, instead of his disordered mind, he could
have cured the well by natural means, and then turned
it into a miracle in the customary way; but no, he was
an old numskull, a magician who believed in his own
magic; and no magician can thrive who is handicapped
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Philosophy 4 by Owen Wister: what the golden fleece used to be to the Greeks,-- a sort of shining,
remote, miraculous thing, difficult though not impossible to find, for
which expeditions were fitted out. It was reported to be somewhere in
the direction of Quincy, and in one respect it resembled a ghost: you
never saw a man who had seen it himself; it was always his cousin, or
his elder brother in '79. But for the successful explorer a dinner and
wines were waiting at the Bird-in-Hand more delicious than anything
outside of Paradise. You will realize, therefore, what a thing it was
to have a room-mate who had attained. If Billy had not been so
dog-tired last night, he would have sat up and made John tell him
everything from beginning to end.
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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 Memoir of Fleeming Jenkin by Robert Louis Stevenson: which I had not well mastered. Another unalloyed dramatic pleasure
which Fleeming and I shared the year of the Paris Exposition, was
the MARQUIS DE VILLEMER, that blameless play, performed by
Madeleine Brohan, Delaunay, Worms, and Broisat - an actress, in
such parts at least, to whom I have never seen full justice
rendered. He had his fill of weeping on that occasion; and when
the piece was at an end, in front of a cafe, in the mild, midnight
air, we had our fill of talk about the art of acting.
But what gave the stage so strong a hold on Fleeming was an
inheritance from Norwich, from Edward Barron, and from Enfield of
the SPEAKER. The theatre was one of Edward Barron's elegant
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