| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Enchanted Island of Yew by L. Frank Baum: to find the treacherous Red Rogue. But that clever trickster had
hidden himself in an upper room, and for the present was safely concealed.
For a time Prince Marvel could not think what to do. Such magic was
all unknown to him, and how to free the imprisoned forms of his
friends was a real problem. He walked around the castle, but no one
was in sight, the Rogue having given orders to all his people to keep
away. Only the tethered horses did he see, and these raised their
heads and whinnied as if in sympathy with his perplexity.
Then he went back into the hall and searched all the rooms of the
castle without finding a single person. On his return he stopped in
front of the mirror and sorrowfully regarded the faces of his friends,
The Enchanted Island of Yew |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from A Passion in the Desert by Honore de Balzac: means of taming her, and remaining in her good graces.
He returned to her, and had the unspeakable joy of seeing her wag her
tail with an almost imperceptible movement at his approach. He sat
down then, without fear, by her side, and they began to play together;
he took her paws and muzzle, pulled her ears, rolled her over on her
back, stroked her warm, delicate flanks. She let him do what ever he
liked, and when he began to stroke the hair on her feet she drew her
claws in carefully.
The man, keeping the dagger in one hand, thought to plunge it into the
belly of the too confiding panther, but he was afraid that he would be
immediately strangled in her last convulsive struggle; besides, he
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