| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Sons of the Soil by Honore de Balzac: chamber assigned to dearest friends.
Above the park, towards Conches, a dozen little brooks, clear, limpid
streams coming from the Morvan, fall into the pond, after adorning
with their silvery ribbons the valleys of the park and the magnificent
gardens around the chateau. The name of the place, Les Aigues, comes
from these charming streams of water; the estate was originally called
in the old title-deeds "Les Aigues-Vives" to distinguish it from
"Aigues-Mortes"; but the word "Vives" has now been dropped. The pond
empties into the stream, which follows the course of the avenue,
through a wide and straight canal bordered on both sides and along its
whole length by weeping willows. This canal, thus arched, produces a
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Lost Princess of Oz by L. Frank Baum: dreadful deed. Toward evening the Wizard came back, riding slowly
upon the Sawhorse because he felt discouraged and perplexed. Glinda
came later in her aerial chariot drawn by twenty milk-white swans, and
she also seemed worried and unhappy. More of Ozma's friends joined
them, and that evening they all had a big talk together. "I think,"
said Dorothy, "we ought to start out right away in search of our dear
Ozma. It seems cruel for us to live comf'tably in her palace while
she is a pris'ner in the power of some wicked enemy."
"Yes," agreed Glinda the Sorceress, "someone ought to search for her.
I cannot go myself, because I must work hard in order to create some
new instruments of sorcery by means of which I may rescue our fair
The Lost Princess of Oz |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Pocket Diary Found in the Snow by Grace Isabel Colbron and Augusta Groner: to visit my kind old guardian, and to have a last consultation with
him before my coming of age. And I know also that I have fallen
into the hands of some one who has an interest in my disappearance.
"There is some one in the next room with the old woman. I hear a
man s voice and they are quarrelling. They are talking of me. He
wants her to do something which she will not do. He commands her
to go away, but she refuses. What does he mean to do? I do not
want her to leave me alone. I do not hate her any more; I know
that she is not bad. When I listened I heard her speaking of me as
of an insane person. She really believes that I am ill. When the
man went away he must have been angry. He stamped down the stairs
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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 Phaedo by Plato: argument? There is the same proof that these ideas must have existed
before we were born, as that our souls existed before we were born; and if
not the ideas, then not the souls.
Yes, Socrates; I am convinced that there is precisely the same necessity
for the one as for the other; and the argument retreats successfully to the
position that the existence of the soul before birth cannot be separated
from the existence of the essence of which you speak. For there is nothing
which to my mind is so patent as that beauty, goodness, and the other
notions of which you were just now speaking, have a most real and absolute
existence; and I am satisfied with the proof.
Well, but is Cebes equally satisfied? for I must convince him too.
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