| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from At the Sign of the Cat & Racket by Honore de Balzac: face of the young painter. She at once recalled the figure of a
loiterer whom, being curious, she had frequently observed, believing
him to be a new neighbor.
"You see how love has inspired me," said the artist in the timid
creature's ear, and she stood in dismay at the words.
She found supernatural courage to enable her to push through the crowd
and join her cousin, who was still struggling with the mass of people
that hindered her from getting to the picture.
"You will be stifled!" cried Augustine. "Let us go."
But there are moments, at the Salon, when two women are not always
free to direct their steps through the galleries. By the irregular
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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 Magic of Oz by L. Frank Baum: recognized as Ruggedo the Nome, and they would send him out of the
Land of Oz and so ruin all his hopes of conquest.
Ruggedo was not really sorry, now that he thought about it, that
Kiki had transformed all these Oz folks. The forest beasts, it was
true, had been so frightened that they would now never consent to be
transformed into men, but Kiki could transform them against their
will, and once they were all in human forms, it would not be
impossible to induce them to conquer the Oz people.
So all was not lost, thought the old Nome, and the best thing for
him to do was to rejoin the Hyup boy who had the secret of the
transformations. So, having made sure the Wizard's black bag was not
The Magic of Oz |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Damaged Goods by Upton Sinclair: science--the mathematician would conclude that wisdom was not
with you doctors, but with me."
"You believe it, sir!" exclaimed the other. "But you deceive
yourself." And he continued, driving home his point with a
finger which seemed to George to pierce his very soul. "Twenty
cases identical with your own have been patiently observed, from
the beginning to the end. Nineteen times the woman was infected
by her husband; you hear me, sir, nineteen times out of twenty!
You believe that the disease is without danger, and you take to
yourself the right to expose your wife to what you call the
chance of your being one of those exceptions, for whom our
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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 Plutarch's Lives by A. H. Clough: considering that the present juncture much required his skill, and
his good fortune too, they voted him the fourth time consul, and made
Catulus Lutatius his colleague, a man very much esteemed by the
nobility, and not unagreeable to the commons.
Marius, having notice of the enemy's approach, with all expedition
passed the Alps, and pitching his camp by the river Rhone, took care
first for plentiful supplies of victuals; lest at any time he should
be forced to fight at a disadvantage for want of necessaries. The
carriage of provision for the army from the sea, which was formerly
long and expensive, he made speedy and easy. For the mouth of the
Rhone, by the influx of the sea, being barred and almost filled up
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