| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Finished by H. Rider Haggard: work of my sick room, if I may so call it, arrived and said that
they were going to carry me out of the cave for a while, if that
were my will. I who longed to breathe the fresh air again, said
that it was very much my will, whereon they grasped the rough
bedstead which I have described by either end and very carefully
bore me down the cave and through its narrow entrance, where they
set the bedstead in the shadow of the overhanging rock without.
When I had recovered a little, for even that short journey tired
me, I looked about me and perceived that as I had expected, I was
in the Black Kloof, for there in front of me were the very huts
which we had occupied on our arrival from Swazi-Land.
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Gambara by Honore de Balzac: what Meyerbeer offers us as a novelty was constantly used by Mozart,
who gives just such a chorus to the devils in /Don Giovanni/."
By plying Gambara, meanwhile, with fresh libations, Andrea thus
strove, by his contradictoriness, to bring the musician back to a true
sense of music, by proving to him that his so-called mission was not
to try to regenerate an art beyond his powers, but to seek to express
himself in another form; namely, that of poetry.
"But, my dear Count, you have understood nothing of that stupendous
musical drama," said Gambara, airily, as standing in front of Andrea's
piano he struck the keys, listened to the tone, and then seated
himself, meditating for a few minutes as if to collect his ideas.
Gambara |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Life of the Spider by J. Henri Fabre: course of the disappearing spiral.
The light has to fall favourably for us to perceive these specks,
the only remains of the ruined auxiliary thread. One would take
them for grains of dust, if the faultless regularity of their
distribution did not remind us of the vanished spiral. They
continue, still visible, until the final collapse of the net.
And the Spider, without a stop of any kind, turns and turns and
turns, drawing nearer to the centre and repeating the operation of
fixing her thread at each spoke which she crosses. A good half-
hour, an hour even among the full-grown Spiders, is spent on spiral
circles, to the number of about fifty for the web of the Silky
The Life of the Spider |
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 Kenilworth by Walter Scott: direction. And Blount will be at his morning meal of Yarmouth
herrings and ale, and Tracy will have his beastly black puddings
and Rhenish; those thorough-paced Welshmen, Thomas ap Rice and
Evan Evans, will be at work on their leek porridge and toasted
cheese;--and she detests, they say, all coarse meats, evil
smells, and strong wines. Could they but think of burning some
rosemary in the great hall! but VOGUE LA GALERE, all must now be
trusted to chance. Luck hath done indifferent well for me this
morning; for I trust I have spoiled a cloak, and made a court
fortune. May she do as much for my gallant patron!"
The royal barge soon stopped at Deptford, and, amid the loud
Kenilworth |
