| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson by Robert Louis Stevenson: by poetry and nature. I make an effort of my mind to be quite one
with Moliere, except upon the stage, where his inimitable JEUX DE
SCENE beggar belief; but you will observe they are stage-plays -
things AD HOC; not great Olympian debauches of the heart and fancy;
hence more perfect, and not so great. Then I come, after great
wanderings, to Carmosine and to Fantasio; to one part of La
Derniere Aldini (which, by the by, we might dramatise in a week),
to the notes that Meredith has found, Evan and the postillion, Evan
and Rose, Harry in Germany. And to me these things are the good;
beauty, touched with sex and laughter; beauty with God's earth for
the background. Tragedy does not seem to me to come off; and when
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Agesilaus by Xenophon: his doings but must illustrate it;--this man whose bearing towards his
fatherland was such that by dint of implicit obedience [he grew to so
greate a height of power],[4] whose zeal in the service of his
comrades won for him the unhesitating attachment of his friends, who
infused into the hearts of his soldiers a spirit, not of discipline
only, but of self-devotion to their chief. And yet surely that is the
strongest of all battle-lines[5] in which obedience creates tactical
efficieny, and alacrity in the field springs out of loyal affection
for the general.
[3] Or, "his sagacity."
[4] The words {pleiston iskhue} are supplied from Plutarch ("Ages."
|
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Menexenus by Plato: that from this city, of which he was the destroyer, and from no other, his
salvation would proceed.
And if a person desired to bring a deserved accusation against our city, he
would find only one charge which he could justly urge--that she was too
compassionate and too favourable to the weaker side. And in this instance
she was not able to hold out or keep her resolution of refusing aid to her
injurers when they were being enslaved, but she was softened, and did in
fact send out aid, and delivered the Hellenes from slavery, and they were
free until they afterwards enslaved themselves. Whereas, to the great king
she refused to give the assistance of the state, for she could not forget
the trophies of Marathon and Salamis and Plataea; but she allowed exiles
|
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 Charmides and Other Poems by Oscar Wilde: O guard him, guard him well, my Giotto's tower,
Thou marble lily of the lily town! let not the lour
Of the rude tempest vex his slumber, or
The Arno with its tawny troubled gold
O'er-leap its marge, no mightier conqueror
Clomb the high Capitol in the days of old
When Rome was indeed Rome, for Liberty
Walked like a bride beside him, at which sight pale Mystery
Fled shrieking to her farthest sombrest cell
With an old man who grabbled rusty keys,
Fled shuddering, for that immemorial knell
|
