| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from A Kidnapped Santa Claus by L. Frank Baum: and chained him to the rocky wall so that he could not escape.
"Ha, ha!" laughed the Daemons, rubbing their hands together with cruel
glee. "What will the children do now? How they will cry and scold
and storm when they find there are no toys in their stockings and no
gifts on their Christmas trees! And what a lot of punishment they
will receive from their parents, and how they will flock to our Caves
of Selfishness, and Envy, and Hatred, and Malice! We have done a
mighty clever thing, we Daemons of the Caves!"
Now it so chanced that on this Christmas Eve the good Santa Claus had
taken with him in his sleigh Nuter the Ryl, Peter the Knook, Kilter
the Pixie, and a small fairy named Wisk--his four favorite assistants.
A Kidnapped Santa Claus |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Letters of Two Brides by Honore de Balzac: great highways of France, level and easy, shaded with evergreen trees.
This century will not see another Bonaparte; and my children, if I
have any, will not be rent from me. They will be mine to train and
make men of--the joy of my life. If you also are true to your destiny,
you who ought to find your mate amongst the great ones of the earth,
the children of your Renee will not lack a zealous protectress.
Farewell, then, for me at least, to the romances and thrilling
adventures in which we used ourselves to play the part of heroine. The
whole story of my life lies before me now; its great crises will be
the teething and nutrition of the young Masters de l'Estorade, and the
mischief they do to my shrubs and me. To embroider their caps, to be
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| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Under the Andes by Rex Stout: Callao.
She had promised me then that she would dance it for me some
day--
I looked at Harry, who had remained standing beside me, gazing
as I had gazed. His eyes were opened wide, staring at the swaying
figure on the column in the most profound astonishment.
He took his hand from my shoulder and stood erect, alone; and
I saw the light of recognition and hope and deepest joy slowly fill
his eyes and spread over his face. Then I realized the danger, and
I endeavored once more to put my arm round his shoulder; but he
shook me off with hot impatience. He leaped forward with the
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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 A Journal of the Plague Year by Daniel Defoe: frighted again.
There was still a question among the learned, and at first perplexed
the people a little: and that was in what manner to purge the house and
goods where the plague had been, and how to render them habitable
again, which had been left empty during the time of the plague.
Abundance- of perfumes and preparations were prescribed by
physicians, some of one kind and some of another, in which the
people who listened to them put themselves to a great, and indeed, in
my opinion, to an unnecessary expense; and the poorer people, who
only set open their windows night and day, burned brimstone, pitch,
and gunpowder, and such things in their rooms, did as well as the
A Journal of the Plague Year |
