| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Facino Cane by Honore de Balzac: he will shrink from enduring any number of hardships to gain them? Are
you not laughing at me?"
"May I die unshriven," he cried vehemently, "if all that I am about to
tell you is not true. I was one-and-twenty years old, like you at this
moment. I was rich, I was handsome, and a noble by birth. I began with
the first madness of all--with Love. I loved as no one can love
nowadays. I have hidden myself in a chest, at the risk of a dagger
thrust, for nothing more than the promise of a kiss. To die for Her--
it seemed to me to be a whole life in itself. In 1760 I fell in love
with a lady of the Vendramin family; she was eighteen years old, and
married to a Sagredo, one of the richest senators, a man of thirty,
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Sylvie and Bruno by Lewis Carroll: Peering about in this way, I happened to notice a plant with rounded
leaves, and with queer little holes cut in the middle of several of
them. "Ah, the leafcutter bee!" I carelessly remarked--you know I am
very learned in Natural History (for instance, I can always tell
kittens from chickens at one glance)--and I was passing on, when a
sudden thought made me stoop down and examine the leaves.
Then a little thrill of delight ran through me --for I noticed that the
holes were all arranged so as to form letters; there were three leaves
side by side, with "B," "R," and "U" marked on them, and after some
search I found two more, which contained an "N" and an "O."
And then, all in a moment, a flash of inner light seemed to illumine a
Sylvie and Bruno |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Resurrection by Leo Tolstoy: The other political prisoner from among the people, Markel
Kondratieff, was a very different kind of man. He began to work
at the age of fifteen, and took to smoking and drinking in order
to stifle a dense sense of being wronged. He first realised he
was wronged one Christmas when they, the factory children, were
invited to a Christmas tree, got up by the employer's wife, where
he received a farthing whistle, an apple, a gilt walnut and a
fig, while the employer's children had presents given them which
seemed gifts from fairyland, and had cost more than fifty
roubles, as he afterwards heard.
When he was twenty a celebrated revolutionist came to their
Resurrection |
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 Lost Princess of Oz by L. Frank Baum: and the one-legged sailor had agreed to do so.
They loaded the back end of the Red Wagon with everything they thought
they might need, and then they formed a procession and marched from
the palace through the Emerald City to the great gates of the wall
that surrounded this beautiful capital of the Land of Oz. Crowds of
citizens lined the streets to see them pass and to cheer them and wish
them success, for all were grieved over Ozma's loss and anxious that
she be found again. First came the Cowardly Lion, then the Patchwork
Girl riding upon the Woozy, then Betsy Bobbin on her mule Hank, and
finally the Sawhorse drawing the Red Wagon, in which were seated the
Wizard and Dorothy and Button-Bright and Trot. No one was obliged to
The Lost Princess of Oz |
