| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Oscar Wilde Miscellaneous by Oscar Wilde: enjoys a singular career. As every one knows, it was prohibited by
the Censor when in rehearsal by Madame Bernhardt at the Palace
Theatre in 1892. On its publication in 1893 it was greeted with
greater abuse than any other of Wilde's works, and was consigned to
the usual irrevocable oblivion. The accuracy of the French was
freely canvassed, and of course it is obvious that the French is not
that of a Frenchman. The play was passed for press, however, by no
less a writer than Marcel Schwob whose letter to the Paris
publisher, returning the proofs and mentioning two or three slight
alterations, is still in my possession. Marcel Schwob told me some
years afterwards that he thought it would have spoiled the
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Captain Stormfield by Mark Twain: You see, I was full of the knowledge and experience of seventy-two
years; the deepest subject those young folks could strike was only
A-B-C to me. And to hear them argue - oh, my! it would have been
funny, if it hadn't been so pitiful. Well, I was so hungry for the
ways and the sober talk I was used to, that I tried to ring in with
the old people, but they wouldn't have it. They considered me a
conceited young upstart, and gave me the cold shoulder. Two weeks
was a-plenty for me. I was glad to get back my bald head again,
and my pipe, and my old drowsy reflections in the shade of a rock
or a tree."
"Well," says I, "do you mean to say you're going to stand still at
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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 The Mysterious Island by Jules Verne: "Water," replied Harding.
"Water!" cried Pencroft, "water as fuel for steamers and engines! water
to heat water!"
"Yes, but water decomposed into its primitive elements," replied Cyrus
Harding, "and decomposed doubtless, by electricity, which will then have
become a powerful and manageable force, for all great discoveries, by some
inexplicable laws, appear to agree and become complete at the same time.
Yes, my friends, I believe that water will one day be employed as fuel,
that hydrogen and oxygen which constitute it, used singly or together, will
furnish an inexhaustible source of heat and light, of an intensity of which
coal is not capable. Some day the coalrooms of steamers and the tenders of
The Mysterious Island |
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 Ion by Plato: wings of the wind (Il.).'
These are the sort of things which I should say that the prophet ought to
consider and determine.
ION: And you are quite right, Socrates, in saying so.
SOCRATES: Yes, Ion, and you are right also. And as I have selected from
the Iliad and Odyssee for you passages which describe the office of the
prophet and the physician and the fisherman, do you, who know Homer so much
better than I do, Ion, select for me passages which relate to the rhapsode
and the rhapsode's art, and which the rhapsode ought to examine and judge
of better than other men.
ION: All passages, I should say, Socrates.
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