| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Youth by Joseph Conrad: months, for years, for all eternity, as though we had been
dead and gone to a hell for sailors. We forgot the day
of the week, the name of the month, what year it was,
and whether we had ever been ashore. The sails blew
away, she lay broadside on under a weather-cloth, the
ocean poured over her, and we did not care. We turned
those handles, and had the eyes of idiots. As soon as we
had crawled on deck I used to take a round turn with a
rope about the men, the pumps, and the mainmast, and
we turned, we turned incessantly, with the water to our
waists, to our necks, over our heads. It was all one.
Youth |
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: cultivate it. As Shakespeare, compared with Tennyson, appears to
have an exclusively dramatic talent, so exactly does Wagner
compared with Mendelssohn. On the other hand, he had not to go to
third rate literary hacks for "librettos" to set to music: he
produced his own dramatic poems, thus giving dramatic integrity
to opera, and making symphony articulate. A Beethoven symphony
(except the articulate part of the ninth) expresses noble
feeling, but not thought: it has moods, but no ideas. Wagner
added thought and produced the music drama. Mozart's loftiest
opera, his Ring, so to speak, The Magic Flute, has a libretto
which, though none the worse for seeming, like The Rhine Gold,
|
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Dreams by Olive Schreiner: moved round and round her. Then one came to her softly, saying, "Let me
lay my hand upon thy side where the child sleeps. If I shall touch him he
shall be as I."
She asked, "Who are you?"
And he said, "I am Health. Whom I touch will have always the red blood
dancing in his veins; he will not know weariness nor pain; life will be a
long laugh to him."
"No," said another, "let me touch; for I am Wealth. If I touch him
material care shall not feed on him. He shall live on the blood and sinews
of his fellow-men, if he will; and what his eye lusts for, his hand will
have. He shall not know 'I want.'" And the child lay still like lead.
|
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 Democracy In America, Volume 1 by Alexis de Toqueville: into their customs, their opinions, and the forms of social
intercourse; it is to be found in all the details of daily life
equally as in the laws. In the Eastern States the instruction
and practical education of the people have been most perfected,
and religion has been most thoroughly amalgamated with liberty.
Now these habits, opinions, customs, and convictions are
precisely the constituent elements of that which I have
denominated manners.
In the Western States, on the contrary, a portion of the
same advantages is still wanting. Many of the Americans of the
West were born in the woods, and they mix the ideas and the
|
