| 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: He was back again in fifteen minutes, with a bottle in his
hand. He should have known better than to choose carbolic, being
a druggist, but all men are a little mad at such times. He lay
down at the edge of the thin little bed that was little more than
a pallet, and he turned his face toward the bare spot that could
just be seen in the gathering gloom. And when he raised the bottle
to his lips the old-time sweetness of his smile illumined his face.
Where the car turns at Eighteenth Street there is a big,
glaring billboard poster, showing a group of stalwart young men in
white ducks lolling on shores, of tropical splendor, with palms
waving overhead, and a glimpse of blue sea in the distance. The
Buttered Side Down |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Four Arthurian Romances by Chretien DeTroyes: on my behalf that he was on the point just now of thrusting my
sword through his breast? And ought I to fear death who have
changed happiness into grief? Joy is now a stranger to me. Joy?
What joy is that? I shall say no more of that, for no one could
speak of such a thing; and I have asked a foolish question. That
was the greatest joy of all which was assured as my possession,
but it endured for but a little while. Whoever loses such joy
through his own misdeed is undeserving of happiness."
(Vv. 3563-3898.) While he thus bemoaned his fate, a lorn damsel
in sorry plight, who was in the chapel, saw him and heard his
words through a crack in the wall. As soon as he was recovered
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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 Tarzan of the Apes by Edgar Rice Burroughs: Before he left he carried the body of Mirando to the gate
of the village, and propped it up against the palisade in such
a way that the dead face seemed to be peering around the
edge of the gatepost down the path which led to the jungle.
Then Tarzan returned, hunting, always hunting, to the
cabin by the beach.
It took a dozen attempts on the part of the thoroughly
frightened blacks to reenter their village, past the horrible,
grinning face of their dead fellow, and when they found the
food and arrows gone they knew, what they had only too well
feared, that Mirando had seen the evil spirit of the jungle.
Tarzan of the Apes |
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 La Grande Breteche by Honore de Balzac: " 'My dear Madame Lepas, if there is anything in your story of a
nature to compromise me,' I said, interrupting the flow of her words,
'I would not hear it for all the world.'
" 'You need have no fears,' said she; 'you will see.'
"Her eagerness made me suspect that I was not the only person to whom
my worthy landlady had communicated the secret of which I was to be
the sole possessor, but I listened.
" 'Monsieur,' said she, 'when the Emperor sent the Spaniards here,
prisoners of war and others, I was required to lodge at the charge of
the Government a young Spaniard sent to Vendome on parole.
Notwithstanding his parole, he had to show himself every day to the
La Grande Breteche |
