| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from A Prince of Bohemia by Honore de Balzac: thrashing; I will give it to her! Poison of my life, she sent me off
like a running footman.'
"By this time we had reached the boulevard, and he had worked himself
up to such a pitch of fury that the words stuck in his throat.
" 'I will kick the stuffing out of her!'
" 'And why?'
" 'My dear fellow, you will never know the thousand-and-one fancies
that slut takes into her head. When I want to stay at home, she,
forsooth, must go out; when I want to go out, she wants me to stop at
home; and she spouts out arguments and accusations and reasoning and
talks and talks till she drives you crazy. Right means any whim that
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Dark Lady of the Sonnets by George Bernard Shaw: Autolycus did: he saw it, if not exactly as Ibsen did (for it was not
quite the same world), at least with much of Ibsen's power of
penetrating its illusions and idolatries, and with all Swift's horror
of its cruelty and uncleanliness.
Now it happens to some men with these powers that they are forced to
impose their fullest exercise on the world because they cannot produce
popular work. Take Wagner and Ibsen for instance! Their earlier
works are no doubt much cheaper than their later ones; still, they
were not popular when they were written. The alternative of doing
popular work was never really open to them: had they stooped they
would have picked up less than they snatched from above the people's
|
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Golden Threshold by Sarojini Naidu: Over the city bridge Night comes majestical,
Borne like a queen to a sumptuous festival.
STREET CRIES
When dawn's first cymbals beat upon the sky,
Rousing the world to labour's various cry,
To tend the flock, to bind the mellowing grain,
From ardent toil to forge a little gain,
And fasting men go forth on hurrying feet,
BUY BREAD, BUY BREAD, rings down the eager street.
When the earth falters and the waters swoon
With the implacable radiance of noon,
|
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 A Journal of the Plague Year by Daniel Defoe: Here the watch placed upon Bow Bridge would have questioned
them, but they, crossing the road into a narrow way that turns out of
the hither end of the town of Bow to Old Ford, avoided any inquiry
there, and travelled to Old Ford. The constables everywhere were
upon their guard not so much, It seems, to stop people passing by as to
stop them from taking up their abode in their towns, and withal
because of a report that was newly raised at that time: and that,
indeed, was not very improbable, viz., that the poor people in London,
being distressed and starved for want of work, and by that means for
want of bread, were up in arms and had raised a tumult, and that they
would come out to all the towns round to plunder for bread. This, I
A Journal of the Plague Year |
