| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Brother of Daphne by Dornford Yates: on earnestly, "everybody will know you're a girl, Judy dear."
"Why, Punch?" She drew aside the dust coat and revealed the
wide Pierrot trousers she was wearing.
"Priceless," I admitted. "But what I really love are your feet."
She
looked concernedly at her little, high-heeled shoes.
I stooped to flick the dust from their patent leather.
"Thank you, Punch. What shall I do about my hair, then?"
"Wear it in a pig-tail. I'll plait it for you. It'll be worth
another sovereign to the Bananas."
"If you put it like that-" she said slowly.
The Brother of Daphne |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Maggie: A Girl of the Streets by Stephen Crane: rescuing aged strangers from villains.
Maggie lost herself in sympathy with the wanderers swooning in
snow storms beneath happy-hued church windows. And a choir within
singing "Joy to the World." To Maggie and the rest of the audience
this was transcendental realism. Joy always within, and they, like
the actor, inevitably without. Viewing it, they hugged themselves
in ecstatic pity of their imagined or real condition.
The girl thought the arrogance and granite-heartedness of the
magnate of the play was very accurately drawn. She echoed the
maledictions that the occupants of the gallery showered on this
individual when his lines compelled him to expose his extreme
Maggie: A Girl of the Streets |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Familiar Studies of Men and Books by Robert Louis Stevenson: direct taxation; and Pepys, with a noble impulse, growing
ashamed of this dishonesty, designed to charge himself with
1000 pounds; but finding none to set him an example, "nobody
of our ablest merchants" with this moderate liking for clean
hands, he judged it "not decent;" he feared it would "be
thought vain glory;" and, rather than appear singular,
cheerfully remained a thief. One able merchant's
countenance, and Pepys had dared to do an honest act! Had he
found one brave spirit, properly recognised by society, he
might have gone far as a disciple. Mrs. Turner, it is true,
can fill him full of sordid scandal, and make him believe,
|
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 Seraphita by Honore de Balzac: have set up an iron wall between her and her old David. She wants me,
but what can I do? Oh, help me! help me! Come and pray!"
The old man's despair was terrible to see.
"The Light of God is defending her," he went on, with infectious
faith, "but oh! she might yield to violence."
"Silence, David! you are raving. This is a matter to be verified. We
will go with you," said the pastor, "and you shall see that there are
no Vertumni, nor Satans, nor Sirens, in that house."
"Your father is blind," whispered David to Minna.
Wilfrid, on whom the reading of Swedenborg's first treatise, which he
had rapidly gone through, had produced a powerful effect, was already
Seraphita |
