| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Soul of the Far East by Percival Lowell: after he has once appreciated Far Eastern taste, to rise with an
unpleasant feeling of satiety, as if he has eaten too much at the
feast.
Their paintings, by comparison, we call sketches. Is not our
would-be slight unwittingly the reverse? Is not a sketch, after all,
fuller of meaning, to one who knows how to read it, than a finished
affair, which is very apt to end with itself, barren of fruit?
Does not one's own imagination elude one's power to portray it? Is it
not forever flitting will-o'-the-wisp-like ahead of us just beyond
exact definition? For the soul of art lies in what art can suggest,
and nothing is half so suggestive as the half expressed, not even a
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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 Patchwork Girl of Oz by L. Frank Baum: Next morning they pushed the raft into the water
and all got aboard. The Quadling man had to hold
the log craft fast while they took their places,
and the flow of the river was so powerful that it
nearly tore the raft from his hands. As soon as
they were all seated upon the logs he let go and
away it floated and the adventurers had begun
their voyage toward the Winkie Country.
The little house of the Quadlings was out of
sight almost before they had cried their good-
byes, and the Scarecrow said in a pleased voice:
The Patchwork Girl of Oz |
