| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Tristram Shandy by Laurence Sterne: upon the imagination--and that in a work of this dramatic cast they are as
necessary as the shifting of scenes--with fifty other cold conceits, enough
to extinguish the fire which roasted him?--O! but to understand this, which
is a puff at the fire of Diana's temple--you must read Longinus--read away-
-if you are not a jot the wiser by reading him the first time over--never
fear--read him again--Avicenna and Licetus read Aristotle's metaphysicks
forty times through a-piece, and never understood a single word.--But mark
the consequence--Avicenna turned out a desperate writer at all kinds of
writing--for he wrote books de omni scribili; and for Licetus (Fortunio)
though all the world knows he was born a foetus, (Ce Foetus n'etoit pas
plus grand que la paume de la main; mais son pere l'ayant examine en
|
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 The Brother of Daphne by Dornford Yates: "I know, and, talking of tight-ropes, Alice, have you seen the
March Hare lately?"
She threw her head back and laughed merrily. Then-
"We are fools, you know," she said.
"Perhaps. Still, a little folly- "
"Is a dangerous thing. And, now, when do you open?"
"To-morrow week. And, owing to the iniquitous provisions of the
new Shops Act, foisted by a reckless Government upon a- "
"You can cut that bit."
"Thank you. We close the same night."
"Positively for one performance only?"
The Brother of Daphne |
