| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Agnes Grey by Anne Bronte: bad and good in all classes.'
The advertisement was quickly written and despatched. Of the two
parties who answered it, but one would consent to give me fifty
pounds, the sum my mother bade me name as the salary I should
require; and here, I hesitated about engaging myself, as I feared
the children would be too old, and their parents would require some
one more showy, or more experienced, if not more accomplished than
I. But my mother dissuaded me from declining it on that account:
I should do vastly well, she said, if I would only throw aside my
diffidence, and acquire a little more confidence in myself. I was
just to give a plain, true statement of my acquirements and
Agnes Grey |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Oscar Wilde Miscellaneous by Oscar Wilde: excepting Shakespeare. Its popularity has extended to all countries
where it is not prohibited. It is performed throughout Europe, Asia
and America. It is played even in Yiddish. This is remarkable in
view of the many dramas by French and German writers who treat of
the same theme. To none of them, however, is Wilde indebted.
Flaubert, Maeterlinck (some would add Ollendorff) and Scripture, are
the obvious sources on which he has freely drawn for what I do not
hesitate to call the most powerful and perfect of all his dramas.
But on such a point a trustee and executor may be prejudiced because
it is the most valuable asset in Wilde's literary estate. Aubrey
Beardsley's illustrations are too well known to need more than a
|
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Commission in Lunacy by Honore de Balzac: Jean-Jules Popinot, judge of the Lower Court of the Department of the
Seine. The Rue du Fouarre--an old word meaning straw--was in the
thirteenth century the most important street in Paris. There stood the
Schools of the University, where the voices of Abelard and of Gerson
were heard in the world of learning. It is now one of the dirtiest
streets of the Twelfth Arrondissement, the poorest quarter of Paris,
that in which two-thirds of the population lack firing in winter,
which leaves most brats at the gate of the Foundling Hospital, which
sends most beggars to the poorhouse, most rag-pickers to the street
corners, most decrepit old folks to bask against the walls on which
the sun shines, most delinquents to the police courts.
|
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 Walden by Henry David Thoreau: to get out. In sane moments we regard only the facts, the case that
is. Say what you have to say, not what you ought. Any truth is
better than make-believe. Tom Hyde, the tinker, standing on the
gallows, was asked if he had anything to say. "Tell the tailors,"
said he, "to remember to make a knot in their thread before they
take the first stitch." His companion's prayer is forgotten.
However mean your life is, meet it and live it; do not shun it
and call it hard names. It is not so bad as you are. It looks
poorest when you are richest. The fault-finder will find faults
even in paradise. Love your life, poor as it is. You may perhaps
have some pleasant, thrilling, glorious hours, even in a poorhouse.
Walden |
