| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Patchwork Girl of Oz by L. Frank Baum: whistle or sing. That makes a popular song
popular, and the time is coming when it will take
the place of all other songs."
"That time won't come to us, just yet," said
the Shaggy Man, sternly: "I'm something of a
singer myself, and I don't intend to be throttled
by any Lulus like your coal-black one. I shall
take you all apart, Mr. Phony, and scatter your
pieces far and wide over the country, as a matter
of kindness to the people you might meet if
allowed to run around loose. Having performed
The Patchwork Girl of Oz |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Call of the Canyon by Zane Grey: made a difference. Only--I'm glad she didn't teach you. I'd rather no girl
could teach you what I couldn't."
"You think I'm a pretty good cook, then?" he asked.
"I've enjoyed this dinner more than any I've ever eaten."
"Thanks, Carley. That'll help a lot," he said, gayly, but his eyes shone
with earnest, glad light. "I hoped I'd surprise you. I've found out here
that I want to do things well. The West stirs something in a man. It must
be an unwritten law. You stand or fall by your own hands. Back East you
know meals are just occasions--to hurry through--to dress for--to meet
somebody--to eat because you have to eat. But out here they are different.
I don't know how. In the city, producers, merchants, waiters serve you for
The Call of the Canyon |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Madame Firmiani by Honore de Balzac: of authors, to whom it doesn't cost a penny to dower their heroines.
Madame Firmiani is simply a coquette, who has lately ruined a young
man, and now prevents him from making a fine marriage. If she were not
so handsome she wouldn't have a penny."
Ah, THAT ONE--of course you recognize him--belongs to the species
Envious. There is no need to sketch him; the species is as well known
as that of the felis domestica. But how explain the perennial vigor of
envy?--a vice that brings nothing in!
Persons in society, literary men, honest folk,--in short, individuals
of all species,--were promulgating in the month of January, 1824, so
many different opinions about Madame Firmiani that it would be tedious
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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 Four Arthurian Romances by Chretien DeTroyes: from a lonely girl, feeble and timid, simple and mild? It is as
if I should see the dog flee before the hare, and the fish chase
the beaver, the lamb the wolf, and the dove the eagle. In the
same fashion the labourer would forsake his pick with which he
strives to earn a livelihood, and the falcon would flee from the
duck, and the gerfalcon from the heron, and the pike from the
minnow, and the stag would chase the lion, and everything would
be reversed. Now I feel within me the desire to give some reason
why it should happen to true lovers that they lose their sense
and boldness to say what they have in mind when they have leisure
and place and time.
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