| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Hidden Masterpiece by Honore de Balzac: us,--a medium by which to communicate ideas, sensations, feelings; in
short, the infinite poesy of being. Every figure is a world; a
portrait, whose original stands forth like a sublime vision, colored
with the rainbow tints of light, drawn by the monitions of an inward
voice, laid bare by a divine finger which points to the past of its
whole existence as the source of its given expression. You clothe your
women with delicate skins and glorious draperies of hair, but where is
the blood which begets the passion or the peace of their souls, and is
the cause of what you call 'effects'? Your saint is a dark woman; but
this, my poor Porbus, belongs to a fair one. Your figures are pale,
colored phantoms, which you present to our eyes; and you call that
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Fanny Herself by Edna Ferber: ticket for the concert (his mother had seen to that), and he
talked of nothing else. He was going with his violin
teacher, Emil Bauer. There were strange stories as to why
Emil Bauer, with his gift of teaching, should choose to bury
himself in this obscure little Wisconsin town. It was known
that he had acquaintance with the great and famous of the
musical world. The East End set fawned upon him, and his
studio suppers were the exclusive social events in
Winnebago.
Schabelitz was to play in the evening. At half past three
that afternoon there entered Brandeis' Bazaar a white-faced,
Fanny Herself |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Songs of Innocence and Experience by William Blake: Her little boy weeping sought.
LAUGHING SONG
When the green woods laugh with the voice of joy,
And the dimpling stream runs laughing by;
When the air does laugh with our merry wit,
And the green hill laughs with the noise of it;
When the meadows laugh with lively green,
And the grasshopper laughs in the merry scene;
When Mary and Susan and Emily
With their sweet round mouths sing 'Ha ha he!'
When the painted birds laugh in the shade,
Songs of Innocence and Experience |
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 The Riverman by Stewart Edward White: was full of the exultation of his discovery. He told of his good
fortune quite as something just born, utterly forgetting his
mother's predictions before he came East. Then as the first
effervescence died, a more gloomy view of the situation came
uppermost. To his heated imagination the deadlock seemed complete.
Carroll's devotion to what she considered her duty appeared
unbreakable. In the reaction Orde doubted whether he would have it
otherwise. And then his fighting blood surged back to his heart.
All the eloquence, the arguments, the pleadings he should have
commanded earlier in the evening hurried belated to their posts.
After the manner of the young and imaginative when in the white fire
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