| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Black Tulip by Alexandre Dumas: up as the Mithridates of the Republic. The brothers De Witt,
therefore, had to strive against a double difficulty, --
against the force of national antipathy, and, besides,
against the feeling of weariness which is natural to all
vanquished people, when they hope that a new chief will be
able to save them from ruin and shame.
This new chief, quite ready to appear on the political
stage, and to measure himself against Louis XIV., however
gigantic the fortunes of the Grand Monarch loomed in the
future, was William, Prince of Orange, son of William II.,
and grandson, by his mother Henrietta Stuart, of Charles I.
The Black Tulip |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from I Have A Dream by Martin Luther King, Jr.: today, have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with
our destiny and their freedom is inextricably bound to our
freedom. We cannot walk alone.
And as we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall march
ahead. We cannot turn back. There are those who are asking the
devotees of civil rights, "When will you be satisfied?" We can
never be satisfied as long as our bodies, heavy with the fatigue
of travel, cannot gain lodging in the motels of the highways and
the hotels of the cities. We cannot be satisfied as long as the
Negro's basic mobility is from a smaller ghetto to a larger one.
We can never be satisfied as long as a Negro in Mississippi
|
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from King Henry VI by William Shakespeare: The Earl of Salisbury craveth supply,
And hardly keeps his men from mutiny,
Since they, so few, watch such a multitude.
EXETER.
Remember, lords, your oaths to Henry sworn,
Either to quell the Dauphin utterly,
Or bring him in obedience to your yoke.
BEDFORD.
I do remember it, and here take my leave
To go about my preparation.
[Exit.]
|
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 Oscar Wilde Miscellaneous by Oscar Wilde: of its popularity on the Continent have been imported here oddly
enough through the agency of the Palace Theatre, where Salome was
originally to have been performed. Of a young lady's dancing, or of
that of her rivals, I am not qualified to speak. I note merely that
the critics who objected to the horror of one incident in the drama
lost all self-control on seeing that incident repeated in dumb show
and accompanied by fescennine corybantics. Except in 'name and
borrowed notoriety' the music-hall sensation has no relation
whatever to the drama which so profoundly moved the whole of Europe
and the greatest living musician. The adjectives of contumely are
easily transmuted into epithets of adulation, when a prominent
|
