| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Wyoming by William MacLeod Raine: with a monkey-wrench in her hand. Where? Right over the hill on
the edge of town. The immediate stampede for the cow ponies was
averted by a warning chug-chug that sounded down the road,
followed by the appearance of a flashing whir that made the
ponies dance on their hind legs.
"The gasoline bronc lady sure makes a hit with me," announced
"Texas," gravely. "I allow I'll rustle a job with the Lazy D
outfit."
"She ce'tainly rides herd on that machine like a champeen,"
admitted Soapy. "I reckon I'll drift over to the Lazy D with you
to look after yore remains, Tex, when the lightning hits you."
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Enemies of Books by William Blades: a precedent were disastrous. That copy (which, I am glad to say,
was easily re-placed), notwithstanding great care on my part,
became soiled and torn, and at last was given up to Nursery martyrdom.
Can I regret it? surely not, for, although bibliographically sinful,
who can weigh the amount of real pleasure received, and actual pain ignored,
by the patient in the contemplation of those beautifully-blended colours?
A neighbour of mine some few years ago suffered severely from a propensity,
apparently irresistible, in one of his daughters to tear his library books.
She was six years old, and would go quietly to a shelf and take down
a book or two, and having torn a dozen leaves or so down the middle,
would replace the volumes, fragments and all, in their places,
|
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Lucile by Owen Meredith: That loose fall of the arms, that dull droop of the face,
And the eye vaguely fix'd on impalpable space.
The dream, which till then had been lulling his life,
As once Circe the winds, had seal'd thought; and his wife
And his home for a time he had quite, like Ulysses,
Forgotten; but now o'er the troubled abysses
Of the spirit within him, aeolian, forth leapt
To their freedom new-found, and resistlessly swept
All his heart into tumult, the thoughts which had been
Long pent up in their mystic recesses unseen.
IV.
|
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 The Voice of the City by O. Henry: places the terms do not mean so much. Poverty is
less pinching; love is temperate; war shrinks to con-
tests about boundary lines and the neighbors' hens.
It is in the cities that our epigram gains in truth and
vigor; and it has remained for one John Hopkins to
crowd the experience into a rather small space of
time.
The Hopkins flat was like a thousand others.
There was a rubber plant in one window; a flea-
bitten terrier sat in the other, wondering when he
was to have his day.
The Voice of the City |
