| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Somebody's Little Girl by Martha Young: magnolia-tree and looked at the row of little girls.
If sometimes just at waking from fitful sleep in her crib-bed there
came to her just a thought, or a remembrance, of a great big soft
white cat that reached its paw out and softly touched her cheek, it
came to her only like the touch of fancy in a big soft white dream.
Often Only-Just-Ladies came and talked over her little white crib
with Sister Helen Vincula.
Bessie Bell's little fingers were no longer pink and round now; they
lay just white, so white and small, on the white spread. And Bessie
Bell did not mind how quiet she was told to be, for she was too
tired to want to make any noise at all.
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from A Heap O' Livin' by Edgar A. Guest: apple tree;
For, knowing what I do to-day, could I but
wander back and play,
I'd get full measure of the joy that boy-
hood gave to me.
I'd like to be a lad again, a youngster, wild and
glad again,
I'd like to sleep and eat again the way I used
to do;
I'd like to race and run again, and drain from
life its fun again,
A Heap O' Livin' |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Polly of the Circus by Margaret Mayo: still in her lap.
When a letter came from Jim and Toby, it was always shared
equally by Mandy and Hasty, Polly and the pastor. But at last a
letter came from Jim only, and Douglas, who was asked to read it,
faltered and stopped after the first few words.
"It's no use my tryin' to keep it from you any longer, Poll," the
letter began, "we ain't got Toby with us no more. He didn't have
no accident, it wasn't that. He just seemed kinder sick and
ailin' like, ever since the night we had to leave you behind. I
used to get him warm drinks and things, and try to pull 'im
through, but he was always a-chillin' and a-achin'. If it wasn't
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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 Across The Plains by Robert Louis Stevenson: if he be of a mind so independent that he cannot stoop to this
necessity, one course is yet open: he can desist from art, and
follow some more manly way of life.
I speak of a more manly way of life, it is a point on which I must
be frank. To live by a pleasure is not a high calling; it involves
patronage, however veiled; it numbers the artist, however
ambitious, along with dancing girls and billiard markers. The
French have a romantic evasion for one employment, and call its
practitioners the Daughters of Joy. The artist is of the same
family, he is of the Sons of Joy, chose his trade to please
himself, gains his livelihood by pleasing others, and has parted
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