| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Salome by Oscar Wilde: fleur d'argent. [Entre Salome.]
SALOME. Je ne resterai pas. Je ne peux pu rester. Pourquoi le
tetrarque me regarde-t-il toujours avec ses yeux de taupe sous ses
paupieres tremblantes? . . . C'est etrange que le mari de ma mere me
regarde comme cela. Je ne sais pas ce que cela veut dire . . . Au
fait, si, je le sais.
LE JEUNE SYRIEN. Vous venez de quitter le festin, princesse?
SALOME. Comme l'air est frais ici! Enfin, ici on respire! Le-
dedans il y a des Juifs de Jerusalem qui se dechirent e cause de
leurs ridicules ceremonies, et des barbares qui boivent toujours et
jettent leur vin sur les dalles, et des Grecs de Smyrne avec leurs
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Misalliance by George Bernard Shaw: PERCIVAL. | I hadnt the least idea-- |
_An embarrassed pause._
PERCIVAL. I assure you if I'd had the faintest notion that my
passenger was a lady I shouldnt have left you to shift for yourself in
that selfish way.
LORD SUMMERHAYS. The lady seems to have shifted for both very
effectually, sir.
PERCIVAL. Saved my life. I admit it most gratefully.
TARLETON. I must apologize, madam, for having offered you the
civilities appropriate to the opposite sex. And yet, why opposite?
We are all human: males and females of the same species. When 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 La Grenadiere by Honore de Balzac: their mother's room before a certain hour, they peeped in at the door
continually; and these morning inroads, made in defiance of the
original compact, were delicious moments for all three. Marie sprang
upon the bed to put his arms around his idolized mother, and Louis,
kneeling by the pillow, took her hand in his. Then came inquiries,
anxious as a lover's, followed by angelic laughter, passionate
childish kisses, eloquent silences, lisping words, and the little
ones' stories interrupted and resumed by a kiss, stories seldom
finished, though the listener's interest never failed.
"Have you been industrious?" their mother would ask, but in tones so
sweet and so kindly that she seemed ready to pity laziness as a
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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 Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx: signified in their eyes the law of pure Will, of Will as it was
bound to be, of true human Will generally.
The world of the German literate consisted solely in bringing
the new French ideas into harmony with their ancient
philosophical conscience, or rather, in annexing the French ideas
without deserting their own philosophic point of view.
This annexation took place in the same way in which a foreign
language is appropriated, namely, by translation.
It is well known how the monks wrote silly lives of Catholic
Saints over the manuscripts on which the classical works of
ancient heathendom had been written. The German literate
The Communist Manifesto |
