| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Intentions by Oscar Wilde: reality beneath the learning, and I dare say that many of the
readers of NOTRE DAME DE PARIS have been much puzzled over the
meaning of such expressions as LA CASAQUE E MAHOITRES, LES
VOULGIERS, LE GALLIMARD TACHE D'ENCRE, LES CRAAQUINIERS, and the
like; but with the stage how different it is! The ancient world
wakes from its sleep, and history moves as a pageant before our
eyes, without obliging us to have recourse to a dictionary or an
encyclopaedia for the perfection of our enjoyment. Indeed, there
is not the slightest necessity that the public should know the
authorities for the mounting of any piece. From such materials,
for instance, as the disk of Theodosius, materials with which the
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Essays of Francis Bacon by Francis Bacon: consilium. So was it done in the Commission of
Union, between England and Scotland; which
was a grave and orderly assembly. I commend set
days for petitions; for both it gives the sudtors more
certainty for their attendance, and it frees the
meetings for matters of estate, that they may hoc
agere. In choice of committees; for ripening busi-
ness for the counsel, it is better to choose indifferent
persons, than to make an indifferency, by putting
in those, that are strong on both sides. I commend
also standing commissions; as for trade, for treas-
Essays of Francis Bacon |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Herland by Charlotte Gilman: Ellador and I had--the conditions of The Great Adventure, and
thought the path was clear before us. But there are some things
one takes for granted, supposes are mutually understood, and to
which both parties may repeatedly refer without ever meaning
the same thing.
The differences in the education of the average man and
woman are great enough, but the trouble they make is not mostly
for the man; he generally carries out his own views of the case.
The woman may have imagined the conditions of married life to
be different; but what she imagined, was ignorant of, or might
have preferred, did not seriously matter.
Herland |
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 Middlemarch by George Eliot: funeral, which, aloof as it seemed to be from the tenor of her life,
always afterwards came back to her at the touch of certain sensitive
points in memory, just as the vision of St. Peter's at Rome
was inwoven with moods of despondency. Scenes which make vital
changes in our neighbors' lot are but the background of our own,
yet, like a particular aspect of the fields and trees, they become
associated for us with the epochs of our own history, and make a part
of that unity which lies in the selection of our keenest consciousness.
The dream-like association of something alien and ill-understood
with the deepest secrets of her experience seemed to mirror that sense
of loneliness which was due to the very ardor of Dorothea's nature.
Middlemarch |
