| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Memories and Portraits by Robert Louis Stevenson: No. 2, at back of stage and hermitage, Fig. 2, out of set piece, R.
H. in a slanting direction" - such passages, I say, though very
practical, are hardly to be called good reading. Indeed, as
literature, these dramas did not much appeal to me. I forget the
very outline of the plots. Of THE BLIND BOY, beyond the fact that
he was a most injured prince and once, I think, abducted, I know
nothing. And THE OLD OAK CHEST, what was it all about? that
proscript (1st dress), that prodigious number of banditti, that old
woman with the broom, and the magnificent kitchen in the third act
(was it in the third?) - they are all fallen in a deliquium, swim
faintly in my brain, and mix and vanish.
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Marvelous Land of Oz by L. Frank Baum: Scarecrow arrived with a coil of clothes-lines and ropes which he had taken
from the courtyard, and in his trip up the stairs he had become so entangled
in the loose ends of the ropes that both he and his burden tumbled in a heap
upon the roof and might have rolled off if Tip had not rescued him.
The Tin Woodman appeared last. He also had been to the courtyard, where he
had cut four great, spreading leaves from a huge palm-tree that was the
pride of all the inhabitants of the Emerald City.
"My dear Nick!" exclaimed the Scarecrow, seeing what his friend had done;
"you have been guilty of the greatest crime any person can commit in the
Emerald City. If I remember rightly, the
193 Full page line-art drawing.
The Marvelous Land of Oz |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Cromwell by William Shakespeare: FRISKIBALL.
I thought your usage would be as the rest,
That had more kindness at my hands than you,
Yet looked askance, when as they saw me poor.
MISTRESS BANISTER.
If Banister should bear so base a heart,
I never would look my husband in the face,
But hate him as I would a Cockatrise.
BANISTER.
And well thou mightest, should Banister deal so.
Since that I saw you, sir, my state is mended:
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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 A Personal Record by Joseph Conrad: door of his study-bedroom close. He was then sixty-two years old
and had been for a quarter of a century the wisest, the firmest,
the most indulgent of guardians, extending over me a paternal
care and affection, a moral support which I seemed to feel always
near me in the most distant parts of the earth.
As to Mr. Nicholas B., sub-lieutenant of 1808, lieutenant of 1813
in the French army, and for a short time Officier d'Ordonnance of
Marshal Marmont; afterward captain in the 2d Regiment of Mounted
Rifles in the Polish army--such as it existed up to 1830 in the
reduced kingdom established by the Congress of Vienna--I must say
that from all that more distant past, known to me traditionally
A Personal Record |
