| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Louis Lambert by Honore de Balzac: now and again, I dare believe that I can love as much as you do.
"And yet, no; you are the angel-woman; there will always be a
greater charm in the expression of your feelings, more harmony in
your voice, more grace in your smile, more purity in your looks
than in mine. Let me feel that you are the creature of a higher
sphere than that I live in; it will be your pride to have
descended from it; mine, that I should have deserved you; and you
will not perhaps have fallen too far by coming down to me in my
poverty and misery. Nay, if a woman's most glorious refuge is in a
heart that is wholly her own, you will always reign supreme in
mine. Not a thought, not a deed, shall ever pollute this heart,
Louis Lambert |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from End of the Tether by Joseph Conrad: storeroom with iron sides, iron roof, iron-plated floor,
too, on account of the heat below. All sorts of rubbish
was shot there: it had a mound of scrap-iron in a corner;
rows of empty oil-cans; sacks of cotton-waste, with a
heap of charcoal, a deck-forge, fragments of an old hen-
coop, winch-covers all in rags, remnants of lamps, and
a brown felt hat, discarded by a man dead now (of a
fever on the Brazil coast), who had been once mate of
the Sofala, had remained for years jammed forcibly be-
hind a length of burst copper pipe, flung at some time
or other out of the engine-room. A complete and im-
End of the Tether |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from What is Man? by Mark Twain: had a season or two of them in New York with these same singers
in the several parts, and possibly this same orchestra. I
resolved to think that out at all hazards.
TUESDAY.--Yesterday they played the only operatic favorite I
have ever had--an opera which has always driven me mad with
ignorant delight whenever I have heard it--"Tannh:auser." I
heard it first when I was a youth; I heard it last in the last
German season in New York. I was busy yesterday and I did not
intend to go, knowing I should have another "Tannh:auser"
opportunity in a few days; but after five o'clock I found myself
free and walked out to the opera-house and arrived about the
What is Man? |
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 Nana, Miller's Daughter, Captain Burle, Death of Olivier Becaille by Emile Zola: and the side face of a tall young man with a noble head of light
hair and an irreproachable getup.
"Do look!" La Faloise again insisted. "There's a man there."
Fauchery decided to level his opera glass at the stage box. But he
turned round again directly.
"Oh, it's Labordette," he muttered in a careless voice, as though
that gentle man's presence ought to strike all the world as though
both natural and immaterial.
Behind the cousins people shouted "Silence!" They had to cease
talking. A motionless fit now seized the house, and great stretches
of heads, all erect and attentive, sloped away from stalls to
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