| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Jungle by Upton Sinclair: to waken, old joys and griefs to laugh and weep. Some fall back and close
their eyes, some beat upon the table. Now and then one leaps up with a cry
and calls for this song or that; and then the fire leaps brighter in
Tamoszius' eyes, and he flings up his fiddle and shouts to his companions,
and away they go in mad career. The company takes up the choruses, and men
and women cry out like all possessed; some leap to their feet and stamp upon
the floor, lifting their glasses and pledging each other. Before long it
occurs to some one to demand an old wedding song, which celebrates the
beauty of the bride and the joys of love. In the excitement of this
masterpiece Tamoszius Kuszleika begins to edge in between the tables,
making his way toward the head, where sits the bride. There is not a foot
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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 Lost Princess of Oz by L. Frank Baum: the rabbit had claimed Ugu the Shoemaker had enchanted the
peach he had eaten.
"Why, Ugu is a great magician who used to live here. But he's gone
away now," replied the Czarover.
"Where has he gone?" asked the Wizard quickly.
"I am told he lives in a wickerwork castle in the mountains to the
west of here. You see, Ugu became such a powerful magician that he
didn't care to live in our city any longer for fear we would discover
some of his secrets. So he went to the mountains and built him a
splendid wicker castle which is so strong that even I and my people
could not batter it down, and there he lives all by himself."
The Lost Princess of Oz |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from A Daughter of Eve by Honore de Balzac: pain of fines, to the reading of new pieces, to the constant study of
new roles. At each representation Florine changes her dress at least
two or three times; often she comes home exhausted and half-dead; but
before she can rest, she must wash off with various cosmetics the
white and the red she has applied, and clean all the powder from her
hair, if she has played a part from the eighteenth century. She
scarcely has time for food. When she plays, an actress can live no
life of her own; she can neither dress, nor eat, nor talk. Florine
often has no time to sup. On returning from a play, which lasts, in
these days, till after midnight, she does not get to bed before two in
the morning; but she must rise early to study her part, order her
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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 Emma McChesney & Co. by Edna Ferber: Do you know what I'm going to do? I'm going to stop at Fifth
Avenue this minute and buy a hat that's a thousand times too
young for me, and you're going with me to tell me that it isn't.
And then you'll take me somewhere to dinner--a place with music
and pink shades. And then I want to see a wicked play,
preferably with a runway through the center aisle for the chorus.
And then I want to go somewhere and dance! Get that, dear?
Dance! Tell me, T. A.--tell me the truth: Do you think I'm old,
and faded, and wistful and grandmotherly?"
"I think," said T. A. Buck, "that you're the most beautiful,
the most wonderful, the most adorable woman in the world, and the
Emma McChesney & Co. |
