| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde: Lady Bracknell: Miss Rose Leclercq.
Hon. Gwendolen Fairfax: Miss Irene Vanbrugh.
Cecily Cardew: Miss Evelyn Millard.
Miss Prism: Mrs. George Canninge.
FIRST ACT
SCENE
Morning-room in Algernon's flat in Half-Moon Street. The room is
luxuriously and artistically furnished. The sound of a piano is
heard in the adjoining room.
[LANE is arranging afternoon tea on the table, and after the music
has ceased, ALGERNON enters.]
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Elixir of Life by Honore de Balzac: him in bed became as difficult as the navigation of a felucca in
the perils of an intricate channel. Then came the day of his
death; and this brilliant sceptic, whose mental faculties alone
had survived the most dreadful of all destructions, found himself
between his two special antipathies--the doctor and the
confessor. But he was jovial with them. Did he not see a light
gleaming in the future beyond the veil? The pall that is like
lead for other men was thin and translucent for him; the light-
footed, irresistible delights of youth danced beyond it like
shadows.
It was on a beautiful summer evening that Don Juan felt the near
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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 Christ in Flanders by Honore de Balzac: almost olive-tinted wrinkles of the skin. The shrunken, ice-cold old
woman wore a black robe, which she trailed in the dust, and at her
throat there was something white, which I dared not examine. I could
scarcely see her wan and colorless eyes, for they were fixed in a
stare upon the heavens. She drew me after her along the aisles,
leaving a trace of her presence in the ashes that she shook from her
dress. Her bones rattled as she walked, like the bones of a skeleton;
and as we went I heard behind me the tinkling of a little bell, a
thin, sharp sound that rang through my head like the notes of a
harmonica.
"Suffer!" she cried, "suffer! So it must be!"
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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 One Basket by Edna Ferber: neck, was in direct opposition to his task, his surroundings, and
his attitude.
Chet's proper milieu was Chicago, Illinois (the West Side); his
job that of lineman for the Gas, Light & Power Company; his
normal working position astride the top of a telegraph pole,
supported in his perilous perch by a lineman's leather belt and
the kindly fates, both of which are likely to trick you in an
emergency.
Yet now he lolled back among his pillows, dabbing complacently at
the absurd yellow toy. A description of his surroundings would
sound like pages 3 to 17 of a novel by Mrs. Humphry Ward. The
One Basket |
