| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Buttered Side Down by Edna Ferber: entrance.
"Why, hello!" said Pearlie, looking up from her typewriter as
though Sid Strang were the last person in the world she expected to
see. "What do you want here? Ethel, this is my friend, Mr. Sid
Strang, one of our rising young lawyers. His neckties always match
his socks. Sid, this is my friend, Miss Ethel Evans, of New York.
We're going over to the strawberry social at the M. E. parsonage.
I don't suppose you'd care about going?"
Mr. Sid Strang gazed at the leading lady in the white lingerie
dress with the pink slip, and the V-shaped neck, and the spangled
scarf, and turned to Pearlie.
Buttered Side Down |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Soul of Man by Oscar Wilde: has been, whereas the new work of art is beautiful by being what
Art has never been; and to measure it by the standard of the past
is to measure it by a standard on the rejection of which its real
perfection depends. A temperament capable of receiving, through an
imaginative medium, and under imaginative conditions, new and
beautiful impressions, is the only temperament that can appreciate
a work of art. And true as this is in the case of the appreciation
of sculpture and painting, it is still more true of the
appreciation of such arts as the drama. For a picture and a statue
are not at war with Time. They take no count of its succession.
In one moment their unity may be apprehended. In the case of
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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 Red Inn by Honore de Balzac: were to sleep, adjoined the public room, and was separated by a
somewhat thin partition from the kitchen, where the landlord and his
wife intended, probably, to pass the night. The servant-woman had left
the premises to find a lodging in some crib or hayloft. It is
therefore easy to see that the kitchen, the landlord's chamber, and
the public room were, to some extent, isolated from the rest of the
house. In the courtyard were two large dogs, whose deep-toned barking
showed vigilant and easily roused guardians.
"What silence! and what a beautiful night!" said Wilhelm, looking at
the sky through the window, as the landlord was fastening the door.
The lapping of the river against the wharf was the only sound to be
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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 Through the Looking-Glass by Lewis Carroll: `Look on the branch above your head,' said the Gnat, `and there
you'll find a snap-dragon-fly. Its body is made of plum-pudding,
its wings of holly-leaves, and its head is a raisin burning in
brandy.'
`And what does it live on?'
`Frumenty and mince pie,' the Gnat replied; `and it makes its
nest in a Christmas box.'
`And then there's the Butterfly,' Alice went on, after she had
taken a good look at the insect with its head on fire, and had
thought to herself, `I wonder if that's the reason insects are so
fond of flying into candles--because they want to turn into
Through the Looking-Glass |
