| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Gentle Grafter by O. Henry: business,' says he, 'from the profitable side of the table is a good
compromise between swiping silver spoons and selling penwipers at a
Waldorf-Astoria charity bazar.'
"'Then,' says I, 'Mr. Bassett, you don't care to talk over my little
business proposition?'
"'Why,' says he, 'do you know, you can't get a Pasteur institute to
start up within fifty miles of where I live. I bite so seldom.'
"So, Bassett rents a room over a saloon and looks around for some
furniture and chromos. The same night I went to Monty Silver's house,
and he let me have $200 on my prospects. Then I went to the only store
in Los Perros that sold playing cards and bought every deck in 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 The Talisman by Walter Scott: Richard's ear drank in these sounds with delight, and while he
yielded himself to the visions of conquest and of glory which
they suggested, an equerry told him that a messenger from Saladin
waited without.
"Admit him instantly," said the King, "and with due honour,
Josceline."
The English knight accordingly introduced a person, apparently of
no higher rank than a Nubian slave, whose appearance was
nevertheless highly interesting. He was of superb stature and
nobly formed, and his commanding features, although almost jet-
black, showed nothing of negro descent. He wore over his coal-
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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 The Art of Writing by Robert Louis Stevenson: the stitch, and yet still to give the effect of an ingenious
neatness.
The conjurer juggles with two oranges, and our pleasure in
beholding him springs from this, that neither is for an
instant overlooked or sacrificed. So with the writer. His
pattern, which is to please the supersensual ear, is yet
addressed, throughout and first of all, to the demands of
logic. Whatever be the obscurities, whatever the intricacies
of the argument, the neatness of the fabric must not suffer,
or the artist has been proved unequal to his design. And, on
the other hand, no form of words must be selected, no knot
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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 A Child's Garden of Verses by Robert Louis Stevenson: Seas and cities, near and far,
And the flying fairies' looks,
In the picture story-books.
How am I to sing your praise,
Happy chimney-corner days,
Sitting safe in nursery nooks,
Reading picture story-books?
V
My Treasures
These nuts, that I keep in the back of the nest,
Where all my tin soldiers are lying at rest,
A Child's Garden of Verses |
