| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Gambara by Honore de Balzac: those vocal fireworks result in a sort of babbling, chattering,
vaporous mucic, of which the sole merit depends on the greater or less
fluency of the singer and his rapidity of vocalization.
"The Italian school has lost sight of the high mission of art. Instead
of elevating the crowd, it has condescended to the crowd; it has won
its success only by accepting the suffrages of all comers, and
appealing to the vulgar minds which constitute the majority. Such a
success is mere street juggling.
"In short, the compositions of Rossini, in whom this music is
personified, with those of the writers who are more or less of his
school, to me seem worthy at best to collect a crowd in the street
Gambara |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Two Noble Kinsmen by William Shakespeare: I did thinke so too, and would account I had a great pen-worth
on't, to give halfe my state, that both she and I at this present
stood unfainedly on the same tearmes.
DOCTOR.
That intemprat surfeit of her eye hath distemperd the other sences:
they may returne and settle againe to execute their preordaind
faculties, but they are now in a most extravagant vagary. This
you must doe: Confine her to a place, where the light may rather
seeme to steale in, then be permitted; take vpon you (yong Sir,
her friend) the name of Palamon; say you come to eate with her,
and to commune of Love; this will catch her attention, for this
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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 Lay Morals by Robert Louis Stevenson: be, wrong? Wrong to the universe; wrong to mankind; wrong to
God. And yet in another sense, and that plainer and nearer,
every man of men, who wishes truly, must be right. He is
right to himself, and in the measure of his sagacity and
candour. That let him do in all sincerity and zeal, not
sparing a thought for contrary opinions; that, for what it is
worth, let him proclaim. Be not afraid; although he be
wrong, so also is the dead, stuffed Dagon he insults. For
the voice of God, whatever it is, is not that stammering,
inept tradition which the people holds. These truths survive
in travesty, swamped in a world of spiritual darkness and
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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 An International Episode by Henry James: But Bessie Alden's silhouette refused to coincide with his
lordship's image, and this want of harmony sometimes vexed her
more than she thought reasonable. When he was absent it was,
of course, less striking; then he seemed to her a sufficiently
graceful combination of high responsibilities and amiable qualities.
But when he sat there within sight, laughing and talking with his
customary good humor and simplicity, she measured it more accurately,
and she felt acutely that if Lord Lambeth's position was heroic,
there was but little of the hero in the young man himself.
Then her imagination wandered away from him--very far away; for it was
an incontestable fact that at such moments he seemed distinctly dull.
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