| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Recruit by Honore de Balzac: notice of it, and search her house, and THEN--"
He said no more, but all present understood what he meant.
The sincere friends of Madame de Dey were so alarmed about her, that
on the morning of the third day, the procureur-syndic of the commune
made his wife write her a letter, urging her to receive her visitors
as usual that evening. Bolder still, the old merchant went himself in
the morning to Madame de Dey's house, and, strong in the service he
wanted to render her, he insisted on seeing her, and was amazed to
find her in the garden gathering flowers for her vases.
"She must be protecting a lover," thought the old man, filled with
sudden pity for the charming woman.
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Ozma of Oz by L. Frank Baum: looking at Billina greedily. "My, my! how good you would taste if I
could only crunch you between my jaws. But don't worry. You would only
appease my appetite for a moment; so it isn't worth while to eat you."
"Thank you," said the hen, nestling closer in Dorothy's arms.
"Besides, it wouldn't be right," continued the Tiger, looking steadily
at Billina and clicking his jaws together.
"Of course not," cried Dorothy, hastily. "Billina is my friend, and
you mustn't ever eat her under any circ'mstances."
"I'll try to remember that," said the Tiger; "but I'm a little
absent-minded, at times."
Then Dorothy carried her pet into the drawing-room of the palace,
Ozma of Oz |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Twice Told Tales by Nathaniel Hawthorne: THE AMBITIOUS GUEST
One September night a family had gathered round their hearth,
and piled it high with the driftwood of mountain streams, the dry
cones of the pine, and the splintered ruins of great trees that
had come crashing down the precipice. Up the chimney roared the
fire, and brightened the room with its broad blaze. The faces of
the father and mother had a sober gladness; the children laughed;
the eldest daughter was the image of Happiness at seventeen; and
the aged grandmother, who sat knitting in the warmest place, was
the image of Happiness grown old. They had found the "herb,
heart's-ease," in the bleakest spot of all New England. This
Twice Told Tales |
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 Dynamiter by Robert Louis Stevenson and Fanny Van De Grift Stevenson: with what different, with what appalling thoughts! Through
the long afternoon, he gradually sank. All that while, I
fought an uphill battle to shield him from the swarms of ants
and the clouds of mosquitoes: the prisoner of my crime. The
night fell, the roar of insects instantly redoubled in the
dark arcades of the swamp; and still I was not sure that he
had breathed his last. At length, the flesh of his hand,
which I yet held in mine, grew chill between my fingers, and
I knew that I was free.
I took his pocket-book and the revolver, being resolved
rather to die than to be captured, and laden besides with the
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