| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from De Profundis by Oscar Wilde: curious effects, of simpler architectural order, of some aesthetic
quality at any rate.
When Marsyas was 'torn from the scabbard of his limbs' - DELLA
VAGINA DELLA MEMBRE SUE, to use one of Dante's most terrible
Tacitean phrases - he had no more song, the Greek said. Apollo had
been victor. The lyre had vanquished the reed. But perhaps the
Greeks were mistaken. I hear in much modern Art the cry of
Marsyas. It is bitter in Baudelaire, sweet and plaintive in
Lamartine, mystic in Verlaine. It is in the deferred resolutions
of Chopin's music. It is in the discontent that haunts Burne-
Jones's women. Even Matthew Arnold, whose song of Callicles tells
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from To-morrow by Joseph Conrad: socks for her father, who expected her to keep up
the supply dutifully. She hated knitting, and, as
she was just at the heel part, she had to keep her
eyes on her needles.
"Of course it isn't as if he had a son to provide
for," Captain Hagberd went on a little vacantly.
"Girls, of course, don't require so much--h'm--
h'm. They don't run away from home, my dear."
"No," said Miss Bessie, quietly.
Captain Hagberd, amongst the mounds of
turned-up earth, chuckled. With his maritime rig,
To-morrow |
