The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from She Stoops to Conquer by Oliver Goldsmith: MARLOW. (Aside.) Egad, she has hit it, sure enough! (To her.) In
awe of her, child? Ha! ha! ha! A mere awkward squinting thing; no,
no. I find you don't know me. I laughed and rallied her a little; but
I was unwilling to be too severe. No, I could not be too severe, curse
me!
MISS HARDCASTLE. O! then, sir, you are a favourite, I find, among the
ladies?
MARLOW. Yes, my dear, a great favourite. And yet hang me, I don't see
what they find in me to follow. At the Ladies' Club in town I'm called
their agreeable Rattle. Rattle, child, is not my real name, but one
I'm known by. My name is Solomons; Mr. Solomons, my dear, at your
She Stoops to Conquer |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Maid Marian by Thomas Love Peacock: While he was revolving these cogitations, he was introduced to the lady,
and after claiming and receiving the promise of hospitality,
he inquired what she knew of the pilgrims who had just departed?
The lady told him they were newly returned from Palestine, having been long
in the Holy Land. The knight expressed some scepticism on this point.
The lady replied, that they had given her so minute a detail of her
lord's proceedings, and so accurate a description of his person,
that she could not be deceived in them. This staggered the knight's
confidence in his own penetration; and if it had not been a heresy
in knighthood to suppose for a moment that there could be in rerum
natura such another pair of eyes as those of his mistress,
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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 Polity of Athenians and Lacedaemonians by Xenophon: "Education."
[28] See "Revenues," iv. 52; Arist. "Frogs," 1069, {e xekenosen tas te
palaistras}, "and the places of exercise vacant and bare."--Frere.
[29] "The duties of the choregia consisted in finding maintenance and
instruction for the chorus" (in tragedy, usually of fifteen
persons) "as long as they were in training; and in providing the
dresses and equipments for the performance."--Jebb, "Theophr.
Char." xxv. 3. For those of the gymnasiarchy, see "Dict. of
Antiq." "Gymnasium." For that of the trierarchy, see Jebb, op.
cit. xxv. 9; xxix. 16; Boeckh, "P. E. A." IV. xi.
[30] See "Econ." ii. 6; Thuc. vi. 31.
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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 Beyond Good and Evil by Friedrich Nietzsche: as confinable property, as a being predestined for service and
accomplishing her mission therein--he must take his stand in this
matter upon the immense rationality of Asia, upon the superiority
of the instinct of Asia, as the Greeks did formerly; those best
heirs and scholars of Asia--who, as is well known, with their
INCREASING culture and amplitude of power, from Homer to the time
of Pericles, became gradually STRICTER towards woman, in short,
more Oriental. HOW necessary, HOW logical, even HOW humanely
desirable this was, let us consider for ourselves!
239. The weaker sex has in no previous age been treated with so
much respect by men as at present--this belongs to the tendency
Beyond Good and Evil |