| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Finished by H. Rider Haggard: recital covering the whole period of the Zulu monarchy which
ended suddenly with these words--
"I have noted, O King and Councillors, that whenever the black
vulture of the Zulus was content to attack birds of his own
feather, he has conquered. But when it has met the grey eagles
of the white men, which come from over the sea, he has been
conquered, and my heart tells me that as it was in the past, so
it shall be in the future. Chaka was a friend of the English, so
was Panda, and so has Cetewayo been until this hour. I say,
therefore, let not the King tear the hand which fed him because
it seems weak, lest it should grow strong and clutch him by the
|
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 What is Man? by Mark Twain: act of the three occupied two hours, and I enjoyed that in spite
of the singing.
I trust that I know as well as anybody that singing is one
of the most entrancing and bewitching and moving and eloquent of
all the vehicles invented by man for the conveying of feeling;
but it seems to me that the chief virtue in song is melody, air,
tune, rhythm, or what you please to call it, and that when this
feature is absent what remains is a picture with the color left
out. I was not able to detect in the vocal parts of "Parsifal"
anything that might with confidence be called rhythm or tune or
melody; one person performed at a time--and a long time, too--
 What is Man? |