| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Secrets of the Princesse de Cadignan by Honore de Balzac: his exile--without family, without son--from his native land."
These words, said in a soulful voice, betrayed angelic sensibility.
D'Arthez was deeply moved. The curiosity of the lover became, so to
speak, a psychological and literary curiosity. He wanted to know the
height that woman had attained, and what were the injuries she thus
forgave; he longed to know how these women of the world, taxed with
frivolity, cold-heartedness, and egotism, could be such angels.
Remembering how the princess had already repulsed him when he first
tried to read that celestial heart, his voice, and he himself,
trembled as he took the transparent, slender hand of the beautiful
Diane with its curving finger-tips, and said,--
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Deputy of Arcis by Honore de Balzac: of a man, 'A sort of magnetism issues from him, one feels his eye
without meeting it'; we don't cry out, 'I am invulnerable on the side
of love,' without having had some prickings of it."
"But so many things have happened since I wrote that nonsense."
"True, he was only a sculptor then, and before long he may be a
minister,--not like Monsieur de Rastignac, but like our great poet,
Canalis."
"I like sermons with definite deductions," said Madame de l'Estorade,
with a touch of impatience.
"That is what Vergniaud said to Robespierre on the 31st of May, and I
reply, with Robespierre, Yes, I'll draw my conclusion; and it is
|
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Father Damien by Robert Louis Stevenson: hyperbolical expression at the best. "He had no hand in the
reforms," he was "a coarse, dirty man"; these were your own words;
and you may think it possible that I am come to support you with
fresh evidence. In a sense, it is even so. Damien has been too
much depicted with a conventional halo and conventional features;
so drawn by men who perhaps had not the eye to remark or the pen to
express the individual; or who perhaps were only blinded and
silenced by generous admiration, such as I partly envy for myself -
such as you, if your soul were enlightened, would envy on your
bended knees. It is the least defect of such a method of
portraiture that it makes the path easy for the devil's advocate,
|
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 Emerald City of Oz by L. Frank Baum: "And so will I," declared the Tin Woodman and the Shaggy Man and Jack
Pumpkinhead, in turn. Tiktok, the machine man, also said he intended
to stand by Ozma. "For," said he, "I should be of no use at all
in Kan-sas."
"For my part," announced Dorothy, gravely, "if the Ruler of Oz must not
desert her people, a Princess of Oz has no right to run away, either.
I'm willing to become a slave with the rest of you; so all we can do
with the Magic Belt is to use it to send Uncle Henry and Aunt Em back
to Kansas."
"I've been a slave all my life," Aunt Em replied, with considerable
cheerfulness, "and so has Henry. I guess we won't go back to Kansas,
The Emerald City of Oz |
