| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson by Robert Louis Stevenson: living colour into them. I am used to it; I do not notice it;
rather prefer my grey, freezing recollections of Scotland; but
there it is, and every morning is a thing to give thanks for, and
every night another - bar when it rains, of course.
About THE WRECKER - rather late days, and I still suspect I had
somehow offended you; however, all's well that ends well, and I am
glad I am forgiven - did you not fail to appreciate the attitude of
Dodd? He was a fizzle and a stick, he knew it, he knew nothing
else, and there is an undercurrent of bitterness in him. And then
the problem that Pinkerton laid down: why the artist can DO
NOTHING ELSE? is one that continually exercises myself. He cannot:
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Plain Tales from the Hills by Rudyard Kipling: to; that's a sign of ill-luck, as sure as Death. He's all brown,
too, and no one ever attends to him. That's the Memsahib's work, I
know; because, when Tsin-ling tried to burn gilt paper before him,
she said it was a waste of money, and, if he kept a stick burning
very slowly, the Joss wouldn't know the difference. So now we've
got the sticks mixed with a lot of glue, and they take half-an-hour
longer to burn, and smell stinky. Let alone the smell of the room
by itself. No business can get on if they try that sort of thing.
The Joss doesn't like it. I can see that. Late at night,
sometimes, he turns all sorts of queer colors--blue and green and
red--just as he used to do when old Fung-Tching was alive; and he
|
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Country of the Pointed Firs by Sarah Orne Jewett: he stepped along before me most businesslike and intent upon his
errand.
We went from the upper edge of the field above the house into
a smooth, brown path among the dark spruces. The hot sun brought
out the fragrance of the pitchy bark, and the shade was pleasant as
we climbed the hill. William stopped once or twice to show
me a great wasps'-nest close by, or some fishhawks'-nests below in
a bit of swamp. He picked a few sprigs of late-blooming linnaea as
we came out upon an open bit of pasture at the top of the island,
and gave them to me without speaking, but he knew as well as I that
one could not say half he wished about linnaea. Through this piece
|
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 Emerald City of Oz by L. Frank Baum: "I congratulate you, my friends," he said, speaking in a cheerful
voice. "You are certainly the cleverest people who ever visited us.
I was never matched together so quickly in my life. I'm considered a
great puzzle, usually."
"Well," said Dorothy, "there used to be a picture puzzle craze in
Kansas, and so I've had some 'sperience matching puzzles. But the
pictures were flat, while you are round, and that makes you harder to
figure out."
"Thank you, my dear," replied old Larry, greatly pleased. "I feel
highly complimented. Were I not a really good puzzle, there would be
no object in my scattering myself."
The Emerald City of Oz |
