| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Perfect Wagnerite: A Commentary on the Niblung's Ring by George Bernard Shaw: Here, then, is the subject of the first scene of The Rhine Gold.
As you sit waiting for the curtain to rise, you suddenly catch
the booming ground-tone of a mighty river. It becomes plainer,
clearer: you get nearer to the surface, and catch the green light
and the flights of bubbles. Then the curtain goes up and you see
what you heard--the depths of the Rhine, with three strange fairy
fishes, half water-maidens, singing and enjoying themselves
exuberantly. They are not singing barcarolles or ballads about
the Lorely and her fated lovers, but simply trolling any nonsense
that comes into their heads in time to the dancing of the water
and the rhythm of their swimming. It is the golden age; and the
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe: would have spoiled them, and I had lost the best part of my winter
food; for I had above two hundred large bunches of them. No sooner
had I taken them all down, and carried the most of them home to my
cave, than it began to rain; and from hence, which was the 14th of
August, it rained, more or less, every day till the middle of
October; and sometimes so violently, that I could not stir out of
my cave for several days.
In this season I was much surprised with the increase of my family;
I had been concerned for the loss of one of my cats, who ran away
from me, or, as I thought, had been dead, and I heard no more
tidings of her till, to my astonishment, she came home about the
Robinson Crusoe |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Reason Discourse by Rene Descartes: which I reckoned as battles in which victory declared for me. I will not
hesitate even to avow my belief that nothing further is wanting to enable
me fully to realize my designs than to gain two or three similar
victories; and that I am not so far advanced in years but that, according
to the ordinary course of nature, I may still have sufficient leisure for
this end. But I conceive myself the more bound to husband the time that
remains the greater my expectation of being able to employ it aright, and
I should doubtless have much to rob me of it, were I to publish the
principles of my physics: for although they are almost all so evident that
to assent to them no more is needed than simply to understand them, and
although there is not one of them of which I do not expect to be able to
Reason Discourse |
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 Manon Lescaut by Abbe Prevost: clothes for Manon, I told him that we might start almost
immediately, if he would be so good as to wait for me a moment
while I went into one or two shops. I know not whether he
suspected that I made this proposition with the view of calling
his generosity into play, or whether it was by the mere impulse
of a kind heart; but, having consented to start immediately, he
took me to a shopkeeper, who had lately furnished his house. He
there made me select several articles of a much higher price than
I had proposed to myself; and when I was about paying the bill,
he desired the man not to take a sou from me. This he did so
gracefully, that I felt no shame in accepting his present. We
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