| 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: touched admiration as from our sympathies, and sometimes makes us
give a composer credit for pathetic intentions which he does not
entertain, just as a boy imagines a treasure of tenderness and
noble wisdom in the beauty of a woman. Besides, Bach set comic
dialogue to music exactly as he set the recitatives of the
Passion, there being for him, apparently, only one recitative
possible, and that the musically best. He reserved the expression
of his merry mood for the regular set numbers in which he could
make one of his wonderful contrapuntal traceries of pure ornament
with the requisite gaiety of line and movement. Beethoven bowed
to no ideal of beauty: he only sought the expression for his
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Familiar Studies of Men and Books by Robert Louis Stevenson: may suppose him competed for between lay and clerical Courts;
and we may suppose him alternately pert and impudent, humble
and fawning, in his defence. But at the end of all
supposing, we come upon some nuggets of fact. For first, he
was put to the question by water. He who had tossed off so
many cups of white Baigneux or red Beaune, now drank water
through linen folds, until his bowels were flooded and his
heart stood still. After so much raising of the elbow, so
much outcry of fictitious thirst, here at last was enough
drinking for a lifetime. Truly, of our pleasant vices, the
gods make whips to scourge us. And secondly he was condemned
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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 The Octopus by Frank Norris: black hair, such as one sees in the saints and evangelists of the
pre-Raphaelite artists, hung over his ears. Presley again
remarked his pointed beard, black and fine, growing from the
hollow cheeks. He looked at his face, a face like that of a
young seer, like a half-inspired shepherd of the Hebraic legends,
a dweller in the wilderness, gifted with strange powers. He was
dressed as when Presley had first met him, herding his sheep, in
brown canvas overalls, thrust into top boots; grey flannel shirt,
open at the throat, showing the breast ruddy with tan; the waist
encircled with a cartridge belt, empty of cartridges.
But now, as Presley took more careful note of him, he was
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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 Soul of a Bishop by H. G. Wells: speaking a "poor," they were highly paid, badly housed, and
deeply resentful. They went in vast droves to football matches,
and did not care a rap if it rained. The prevailing wind was
sarcastic. To come here from London was to come from atmospheric
blue-greys to ashen-greys, from smoke and soft smut to grime and
black grimness.
The bishop had been charmed by the historical associations of
Princhester when first the see was put before his mind. His
realization of his diocese was a profound shock.
Only one hint had he had of what was coming. He had met during
his season of congratulations Lord Gatling dining unusually at
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