| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Patchwork Girl of Oz by L. Frank Baum: So they began the climb and found it indeed
difficult, for a way. But presently, in creeping
over the big crags, they found a path at their
feet which wound in and out among the masses of
rock and was quite smooth and easy to walk upon.
As the path gradually ascended the mountain,
although in a roundabout way, they decided to
follow it.
"This must be the road to the Country of
the Hoppers," said the Scarecrow.
"Who are the Hoppers?" asked Dorothy.
The Patchwork Girl of Oz |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Albert Savarus by Honore de Balzac: myself forward in antagonism to the town. I came here only to
leave the place as deputy. I mean to engage only in commercial
cases, because commercial men return the members; they will
distrust me if I defend "the priests"--for to them you are simply
priests. If I undertake your defence, it is because I was, in
1828, private secretary to such a Minister' (again a start of
surprise on the part of my Abbe), 'and Master of Appeals, under
the name of Albert de Savarus' (another start). 'I have remained
faithful to monarchical opinions; but, as you have not the
majority of votes in Besancon, I must gain votes among the
citizens. So the fee I ask of you is the votes you may be able
Albert Savarus |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from When a Man Marries by Mary Roberts Rinehart: Dearest Mother:
I hope you will get this before you read the papers, and when you
DO read them, you are not to get excited and worried. I am as
well as can be, and a great deal safer than I ever remember to
have been in my life. We are quarantined, a lot of us, in Jim
Wilson's house, because his irreproachable Jap did a very
reproachable thing--took smallpox. Now read on before you get
excited. HIS ROOM HAS BEEN FUMIGATED, and we have been
vaccinated. I am well and happy. I can't be killed in a railway
wreck or smashed when the car skids. Unless I drown myself in my
bath, or jump through a window, positively nothing can happen to
|
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 Fall of the House of Usher by Edgar Allan Poe: length drank in the hideous import of his words.
"Not hear it?--yes, I hear it, and have heard it. Long-
-long--long--many minutes, many hours, many days, have I heard
it--yet I dared not--oh, pity me, miserable wretch that I am!--I
dared not--I dared not speak! We have put her living in
the tomb! Said I not that my senses were acute? I now tell
you that I heard her first feeble movements in the hollow coffin.
I heard them--many, many days ago--yet I dared not--I dared
not speak! And now--to-night--Ethelred--ha! ha!--the breaking
of the hermit's door, and the death-cry of the dragon, and the
clangour of the shield!--say, rather, the rending of her coffin,
The Fall of the House of Usher |
