| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Heart of the West by O. Henry: man, for all his middle age." But, the focus of Dry Valley's eyes
embraced no women. They were merely beings who flew skirts as a signal
for him to lift awkwardly his heavy, round-crowned, broad-brimmed felt
Stetson whenever he met them, and then hurry past to get back to his
beloved berries.
And all this recitative by the chorus is only to bring us to the point
where you may be told why Dry Valley shook up the insoluble sulphur in
the bottle. So long-drawn and inconsequential a thing is history--the
anamorphous shadow of a milestone reaching down the road between us
and the setting sun.
When his strawberries were beginning to ripen Dry Valley bought the
Heart of the West |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from A Man of Business by Honore de Balzac: "For six or seven years this Claparon acted as man of straw, cat's
paw, and scapegoat to two friends of ours, du Tillet and Nucingen; but
in 1829 his part was so well known that--"
"Our friends dropped him," put in Bixiou.
"They left him to his fate at last, and he wallowed in the mire,"
continued Desroches. "In 1833 he went into partnership with one
Cerizet--"
"What! he that promoted a joint-stock company so nicely that the Sixth
Chamber cut short his career with a couple of years in jail?" asked
the lorette.
"The same. Under the Restoration, between 1823 and 1827, Cerizet's
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