| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Emerald City of Oz by L. Frank Baum: After resting a while and strolling through the orchards with their
host--a round, jolly farmer--they got into the wagon and again started
the Sawhorse along the pretty, winding road.
There were signposts at all the corners, and finally they came to one
which read:
TAKE THIS ROAD TO THE CUTTENCLIPS
There was also a hand pointing in the right direction, so they turned
the Sawhorse that way and found it a very good road, but seemingly
little traveled.
"I've never seen the Cuttenclips before," remarked Dorothy.
"Nor I," said the Captain General.
The Emerald City of Oz |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Lady Chatterley's Lover by D. H. Lawrence: 'Yes, life is all too simple!'
Chapter 5
On a frosty morning with a little February sun, Clifford and Connie
went for a walk across the park to the wood. That is, Clifford chuffed
in his motor-chair, and Connie walked beside him.
The hard air was still sulphurous, but they were both used to it. Round
the near horizon went the haze, opalescent with frost and smoke, and on
the top lay the small blue sky; so that it was like being inside an
enclosure, always inside. Life always a dream or a frenzy, inside an
enclosure.
The sheep coughed in the rough, sere grass of the park, where frost lay
Lady Chatterley's Lover |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Maid Marian by Thomas Love Peacock: pined in the monotonous inaction to which she was condemned.
While she could freely range the forest with her lover in
the morning, she had been content to return to her father's
castle in the evening, thus preserving underanged the balance
of her duties, habits, and affections; not without a hope that
the repeal of her lover's outlawry might be eventually obtained,
by a judicious distribution of some of his forest spoils among
the holy fathers and saints that-were-to-be,--pious proficients
in the ecclesiastic art equestrian, who rode the conscience
of King Henry with double-curb bridles, and kept it well in hand
when it showed mettle and seemed inclined to rear and plunge.
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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 Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas: "Very little, at least; I know of none which Cavalcanti
possesses, excepting his palace in Lucca."
"Ah, he has a palace?" said Danglars, laughing; "come, that
is something."
"Yes; and more than that, he lets it to the Minister of
Finance while he lives in a simple house. Oh, as I told you
before, I think the old fellow is very close."
"Come, you do not flatter him."
"I scarcely know him; I think I have seen him three times in
my life; all I know relating to him is through Busoni and
himself. He was telling me this morning that, tired of
The Count of Monte Cristo |
