| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Perfect Wagnerite: A Commentary on the Niblung's Ring by George Bernard Shaw: Who will mend the sword? Mimmy, his head forfeited, confesses
with loud lamentations that he cannot answer. The Wanderer reads
him an appropriate little lecture on the folly of being too
clever to ask what he wants to know, and informs him that a smith
to whom fear is unknown will mend Nothung. To this smith he
leaves the forfeited head of his host, and wanders off into the
forest. Then Mimmy's nerves give way completely. He shakes like a
man in delirium tremens, and has a horrible nightmare, in the
supreme convulsion of which Siegfried, returning from the forest,
presently finds him.
A curious and amusing conversation follows. Siegfried himself
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Black Tulip by Alexandre Dumas: The Prince was scarcely twenty-three, and Rosa eighteen or
twenty. He might therefore perhaps better have said, My
sister.
"My child," he said, with that strangely commanding accent
which chilled all those who approached him, "we are alone;
let us speak together."
Rosa began to tremble, and yet there was nothing but
kindness in the expression of the Prince's face.
"Monseigneur," she stammered.
"You have a father at Loewestein?"
"Yes, your Highness."
The Black Tulip |
