The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Intentions by Oscar Wilde: instinct for form. Who wants to wade through a dull volume? One
tastes it, and that is quite enough - more than enough, I should
imagine. I am aware that there are many honest workers in painting
as well as in literature who object to criticism entirely. They
are quite right. Their work stands in no intellectual relation to
their age. It brings us no new element of pleasure. It suggests
no fresh departure of thought, or passion, or beauty. It should
not be spoken of. It should be left to the oblivion that it
deserves.
ERNEST. But, my dear fellow - excuse me for interrupting you - you
seem to me to be allowing your passion for criticism to lead you a
|
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 Wife, et al by Anton Chekhov: schoolmaster Burkin. Ivan Ivanovitch had a rather strange
double-barrelled surname -- Tchimsha-Himalaisky -- which did not
suit him at all, and he was called simply Ivan Ivanovitch all
over the province. He lived at a stud-farm near the town, and had
come out shooting now to get a breath of fresh air. Burkin, the
high-school teacher, stayed every summer at Count P-----'s, and
had been thoroughly at home in this district for years.
They did not sleep. Ivan Ivanovitch, a tall, lean old fellow with
long moustaches, was sitting outside the door, smoking a pipe in
the moonlight. Burkin was lying within on the hay, and could not
be seen in the darkness.
|