| 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: CYRIL. Then we must entirely cultivate it at once. But in order
to avoid making any error I want you to tell me briefly the
doctrines of the new aesthetics.
VIVIAN. Briefly, then, they are these. Art never expresses
anything but itself. It has an independent life, just as Thought
has, and develops purely on its own lines. It is not necessarily
realistic in an age of realism, nor spiritual in an age of faith.
So far from being the creation of its time, it is usually in direct
opposition to it, and the only history that it preserves for us is
the history of its own progress. Sometimes it returns upon its
footsteps, and revives some antique form, as happened in the
|
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 Pagan and Christian Creeds by Edward Carpenter: life, for food in another form; and the other was the return
of Light and Warmth, making life easier in all ways. Food
delivering from the fear of starvation; Light and Warmth
delivering from the fear of danger and of cold. These were
three glorious things which returned together and brought
salvation and renewed life to man. The period of their
return was 'Spring,' and though Spring and its benefits
might fade away in time, still there was always the HOPE
of its return--though even so it may have been a long time
in human evolution before man discovered that it really did
always return, and (with certain allowances) at equal intervals
Pagan and Christian Creeds |
