| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from A Simple Soul by Gustave Flaubert: in the fields. She was clad in miserable rags, beaten for the
slightest offence and finally dismissed for a theft of thirty sous
which she did not commit. She took service on another farm where she
tended the poultry; and as she was well thought of by her master, her
fellow-workers soon grew jealous.
One evening in August (she was then eighteen years old), they
persuaded her to accompany them to the fair at Colleville. She was
immediately dazzled by the noise, the lights in the trees, the
brightness of the dresses, the laces and gold crosses, and the crowd
of people all hopping at the same time. She was standing modestly at a
distance, when presently a young man of well-to-do appearance, who had
A Simple Soul |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The First Men In The Moon by H. G. Wells: sobbed. "I will," I chattered in my teeth. And then, with fingers that
quivered and felt brittle, I turned to the shutter studs.
As I fumbled with the switches - for I had never controlled them before -
I could see dimly through the steaming glass the blazing red streamers of
the sinking sun, dancing and flickering through the snowstorm, and the
black forms of the scrub thickening and bending and breaking beneath the
accumulating snow. Thicker whirled the snow and thicker, black against
the light. What if even now the switches overcame me? Then something
clicked under my hands, and in an instant that last vision of the moon
world was hidden from my eyes. I was in the silence and darkness the
inter-planetary sphere.
The First Men In The Moon |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Marvelous Land of Oz by L. Frank Baum: in her way. It will satisfy me as well to have Jinjur turned out, as an
impostor, as to regain the throne myself. In fact, it isn't much fun to be
King, especially if one has good brains. I have known for some time that I
am fitted to occupy a far more exalted position. But where is the girl who
owns the throne, and what is her name?"
"Her name is Ozma," answered Glinda. "But where she is I have tried in vain
to discover. For the Wizard of Oz, when he stole the throne from Ozma's
father, hid the girl in some secret place; and by means of a magical trick
with which I am not familiar he also managed to prevent her being discovered
-- even by so experienced a Sorceress as myself."
"That is strange," interrupted the Woggle-Bug, pompously. "I have been
The Marvelous Land of Oz |
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 Scenes from a Courtesan's Life by Honore de Balzac: well."
A woman dressed like Asie could disappear, without any questions being
asked, in the huge market-place, where all the rags in Paris are
gathered together, where a thousand costermongers wander round, and
two hundred old-clothes sellers are chaffering.
The two prisoners had hardly been locked up when she was dressing
herself in a low, damp entresol over one of those foul shops where
remnants are sold, pieces stolen by tailors and dressmakers--an
establishment kept by an old maid known as La Romette, from her
Christian name Jeromette. La Romette was to the "purchasers of
wardrobes" what these women are to the better class of so-called
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