| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Taras Bulba and Other Tales by Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol: effect upon his mental state. He grew expansive, made himself
agreeable in conversation, in short, he passed a delightful evening.
After supper he drank a couple of glasses of champagne--not a bad
recipe for cheerfulness, as every one knows. The champagne inclined
him to various adventures; and he determined not to return home, but
to go and see a certain well-known lady of German extraction, Karolina
Ivanovna, a lady, it appears, with whom he was on a very friendly
footing.
It must be mentioned that the prominent personage was no longer a
young man, but a good husband and respected father of a family. Two
sons, one of whom was already in the service, and a good-looking,
Taras Bulba and Other Tales |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Melmoth Reconciled by Honore de Balzac: nation and nation; who cannot grasp political schemes as well as plans
of campaign, and combine the science of the tactician with that of the
administrator, are bound to live in a state of ignorance; the most
boorish peasant in the most backward district in France is scarcely in
a worse case. Such men as these bear the brunt of war, yield passive
obedience to the brain that directs them, and strike down the men
opposed to them as the woodcutter fells timber in the forest. Violent
physical exertion is succeeded by times of inertia, when they repair
the waste. They fight and drink, fight and eat, fight and sleep, that
they may the better deal hard blows; the powers of the mind are not
greatly exercised in this turbulent round of existence, and the
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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 The Turn of the Screw by Henry James: But the next after that I must have sounded stern enough.
"What WERE these things?"
My sternness was all for his judge, his executioner; yet it made him
avert himself again, and that movement made ME, with a single bound
and an irrepressible cry, spring straight upon him. For there again,
against the glass, as if to blight his confession and stay his answer,
was the hideous author of our woe--the white face of damnation.
I felt a sick swim at the drop of my victory and all the return of my battle,
so that the wildness of my veritable leap only served as a great betrayal.
I saw him, from the midst of my act, meet it with a divination,
and on the perception that even now he only guessed, and that the window
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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 The Lost Princess of Oz by L. Frank Baum: Cayke now got off the Frogman's back and he stood erect again and
carefully brushed the dust from his velvet coat and rearranged his white
satin necktie.
"I had no idea I could leap so far," he said wonderingly. "Leaping is
one more accomplishment I can now add to the long list of deeds I am
able to perform."
"You are certainly fine at leap-frog," said the Cookie Cook
admiringly, "but, as you say, you are wonderful in many ways. If we
meet with any people down here, I am sure they will consider you the
greatest and grandest of all living creatures."
"Yes," he replied, "I shall probably astonish strangers, because they
The Lost Princess of Oz |
