| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Ion by Plato: are always being sought after, is he not at once appointed a general?' Ion
replies that he is a foreigner, and the Athenians and Spartans will not
appoint a foreigner to be their general. 'No, that is not the real reason;
there are many examples to the contrary. But Ion has long been playing
tricks with the argument; like Proteus, he transforms himself into a
variety of shapes, and is at last about to run away in the disguise of a
general. Would he rather be regarded as inspired or dishonest?' Ion, who
has no suspicion of the irony of Socrates, eagerly embraces the alternative
of inspiration.
The Ion, like the other earlier Platonic Dialogues, is a mixture of jest
and earnest, in which no definite result is obtained, but some Socratic or
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Tales and Fantasies by Robert Louis Stevenson: of voice, 'I want you to take me away,' she added.
'Away?' he repeated. 'How? Where?'
'To-day,' she said. 'I do not care where it is, but I want
you to take me away.'
'For how long? I do not understand,' gasped Dick.
'I shall never come back here any more,' was all she
answered.
Wild words uttered, as these were, with perfect quiet of
manner and voice, exercise a double influence on the hearer's
mind. Dick was confounded; he recovered from astonishment
only to fall into doubt and alarm. He looked upon her frozen
|
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Familiar Studies of Men and Books by Robert Louis Stevenson: They seized a fisherman's boat and rowed out - Perry lying
far to sea because of the two tides. Their very manner of
boarding was significant of determination; for they had no
sooner caught hold upon the ship than they kicked away their
boat to make return impossible. And now you would have
thought that all was over. But the Commodore was already in
treaty with the Shogun's Government; it was one of the
stipulations that no Japanese was to be aided in escaping
from Japan; and Yoshida and his followers were handed over as
prisoners to the authorities at Simoda. That night he who
had been to explore the secrets of the barbarian slept, if he
|
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 Perfect Wagnerite: A Commentary on the Niblung's Ring by George Bernard Shaw: shoulders his way through them, joyously sounding his horn to the
accompaniment of their crackling and seething. And never a hair
of his head is singed. Those frightful flames which have scared
mankind for centuries from the Truth, have not heat enough in
them to make a child shut its eyes. They are mere phantasmagoria,
highly creditable to Loki's imaginative stage-management; but
nothing ever has perished or will perish eternally in them except
the Churches which nave been so poor and faithless as to trade
for their power on the lies of a romancer.
BACK TO OPERA AGAIN
And now, O Nibelungen Spectator, pluck up; for all allegories
|
