| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from This Side of Paradise by F. Scott Fitzgerald: Pirate Lieutenant. Every night for the last week they had
rehearsed "Ha-Ha Hortense!" in the Casino, from two in the
afternoon until eight in the morning, sustained by dark and
powerful coffee, and sleeping in lectures through the interim. A
rare scene, the Casino. A big, barnlike auditorium, dotted with
boys as girls, boys as pirates, boys as babies; the scenery in
course of being violently set up; the spotlight man rehearsing by
throwing weird shafts into angry eyes; over all the constant
tuning of the orchestra or the cheerful tumpty-tump of a Triangle
tune. The boy who writes the lyrics stands in the corner, biting
a pencil, with twenty minutes to think of an encore; the business
This Side of Paradise |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Records of a Family of Engineers by Robert Louis Stevenson: be forgotten'; and already, in 1675, the birth of my direct
ascendant was registered in Glasgow. So that I have been
pursuing ancestors too far down; and John the land-labourer is
debarred me, and I must relinquish from the trophies of my
house his RARE SOUL-STRENGTHENING AND COMFORTING CORDIAL. It
is the same case with the Edinburgh bailie and the miller of
the Canonmills, worthy man! and with that public character,
Hugh the Under-Clerk, and, more than all, with Sir Archibald,
the physician, who recorded arms. And I am reduced to a
family of inconspicuous maltsters in what was then the clean
and handsome little city on the Clyde.
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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 Symposium by Plato: which he thought best. Then, he added, let me have your permission first
to ask Agathon a few more questions, in order that I may take his
admissions as the premisses of my discourse.
I grant the permission, said Phaedrus: put your questions. Socrates then
proceeded as follows:--
In the magnificent oration which you have just uttered, I think that you
were right, my dear Agathon, in proposing to speak of the nature of Love
first and afterwards of his works--that is a way of beginning which I very
much approve. And as you have spoken so eloquently of his nature, may I
ask you further, Whether love is the love of something or of nothing? And
here I must explain myself: I do not want you to say that love is the love
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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 Sarrasine by Honore de Balzac: love me as I should like to be loved.'
" 'How?'
" 'Purely, with no mingling of vulgar passion. I abhor men even more,
perhaps than I hate women. I need to take refuge in friendship. The
world is a desert to me. I am an accursed creature, doomed to
understand happiness, to feel it, to desire it, and like many, many
others, compelled to see it always fly from me. Remember, signor, that
I have not deceived you. I forbid you to love me. I can be a devoted
friend to you, for I admire your strength of will and your character.
I need a brother, a protector. Be both of these to me, but nothing
more.'
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