| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from This Side of Paradise by F. Scott Fitzgerald: same tone. This tickled his vanity, but inspired him to no
further effort.
He read enormously. He was puzzled and depressed by "A Portrait
of the Artist as a Young Man"; intensely interested by "Joan and
Peter" and "The Undying Fire," and rather surprised by his
discovery through a critic named Mencken of several excellent
American novels: "Vandover and the Brute," "The Damnation of
Theron Ware," and "Jennie Gerhardt." Mackenzie, Chesterton,
Galsworthy, Bennett, had sunk in his appreciation from sagacious,
life-saturated geniuses to merely diverting contemporaries.
Shaw's aloof clarity and brilliant consistency and the gloriously
This Side of Paradise |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Mrs. Warren's Profession by George Bernard Shaw: problems created by sex seriously faced and dealt with,
inevitably ignore the official formula and are suppressed. If
the old rule against the exhibition of illicit sex relations on
stage were revived, and the subject absolutely barred, the only
result would be that Antony and Cleopatra, Othello (because of
the Bianca episode), Troilus and Cressida, Henry IV, Measure for
Measure, Timon of Athens, La Dame aux Camellias, The Profligate,
The Second Mrs Tanqueray, The Notorious Mrs Ebbsmith, The Gay
Lord Quex, Mrs Dane's Defence, and Iris would be swept from the
stage, and placed under the same ban as Tolstoy's Dominion of
Darkness and Mrs Warren's Profession, whilst such plays as the
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| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Merry Men by Robert Louis Stevenson: my memory, and I made sure that these strangers must be Spaniards
in quest of ancient treasure and the lost ship of the Armada. But
the people living in outlying islands, such as Aros, are answerable
for their own security; there is none near by to protect or even to
help them; and the presence in such a spot of a crew of foreign
adventurers - poor, greedy, and most likely lawless - filled me
with apprehensions for my uncle's money, and even for the safety of
his daughter. I was still wondering how we were to get rid of them
when I came, all breathless, to the top of Aros. The whole world
was shadowed over; only in the extreme east, on a hill of the
mainland, one last gleam of sunshine lingered like a jewel; rain
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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 The Wrong Box by Stevenson & Osbourne: impossible it was to paint by gaslight, or to sculpture
life-sized nymphs without a model.
'I know that,' he would reply. 'No one in Norfolk Street knows it
better; and if I were rich I should certainly employ the best
models in London; but, being poor, I have taught myself to do
without them. An occasional model would only disturb my ideal
conception of the figure, and be a positive impediment in my
career. As for painting by an artificial light,' he would
continue, 'that is simply a knack I have found it necessary to
acquire, my days being engrossed in the work of tuition.'
At the moment when we must present him to our readers, Pitman was
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