| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Roads of Destiny by O. Henry: this thing up about the middle of the month, after the tax bill is
settled. Now, Mullens, you send over, as soon as you can, and get me
the figures on the cost of those irrigation ditches and the statistics
about the increased production per acre. I'm going to need you when
that bill of mine comes up. I reckon we'll be able to pull along
pretty well together this session and maybe others to come, eh,
Senator?"
Thus did fortune elect to smile upon the Boy Artist of the San Saba.
Fate had already done her share when she arranged his atoms in the
cosmogony of creation as the grandson of Lucien Briscoe.
The original Briscoe had been a pioneer both as to territorial
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson:
Treasure Island |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Buttered Side Down by Edna Ferber: Our grand-stand seats almost two thousand, counting the boxes.
But only the snobs, and the girls with new hats, sit in the boxes.
Box seats are comfortable, it is true, and they cost only an
additional ten cents, but we have come to consider them
undemocratic, and unworthy of true fans. Mrs. Freddy Van Dyne, who
spends her winters in Egypt and her summers at the ball park, comes
out to the game every afternoon in her automobile, but she never
occupies a box seat; so why should we? She perches up in the
grand-stand with the rest of the enthusiasts, and when Kelly puts
one over she stands up and clinches her fists, and waves her arms
and shouts with the best of 'em. She has even been known to cry,
Buttered Side Down |
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 Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson: and it shall be here or nowhere at all whatever; for I would have
you to understand that I am as stiffnecked as yoursel', and a
gentleman of better family."
This change of note disconcerted Ebenezer; he was a little while
digesting it, and then says he, "Weel, weel, what must be must,"
and shut the window. But it took him a long time to get
down-stairs, and a still longer to undo the fastenings, repenting
(I dare say) and taken with fresh claps of fear at every second
step and every bolt and bar. At last, however, we heard the
creak of the hinges, and it seems my uncle slipped gingerly out
and (seeing that Alan had stepped back a pace or two) sate him
Kidnapped |
