| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus by L. Frank Baum: lives of mankind unseen and unknown, and if they favor some people
more than others it is because these have won such distinction fairly,
as the Fairies are very just and impartial. But the idea of adopting
a child of men had never occurred to them because it was in every way
opposed to their laws; so their curiosity was intense to behold the
little stranger adopted by Necile and her sister nymphs.
Claus looked upon the immortals who thronged around him with fearless
eyes and smiling lips. He rode laughingly upon the shoulders of the
merry Ryls; he mischievously pulled the gray beards of the low-browed
Knooks; he rested his curly head confidently upon the dainty bosom of
the Fairy Queen herself. And the Ryls loved the sound of his laughter;
The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Hidden Masterpiece by Honore de Balzac: short, the infinite poesy of being. Every figure is a world; a
portrait, whose original stands forth like a sublime vision, colored
with the rainbow tints of light, drawn by the monitions of an inward
voice, laid bare by a divine finger which points to the past of its
whole existence as the source of its given expression. You clothe your
women with delicate skins and glorious draperies of hair, but where is
the blood which begets the passion or the peace of their souls, and is
the cause of what you call 'effects'? Your saint is a dark woman; but
this, my poor Porbus, belongs to a fair one. Your figures are pale,
colored phantoms, which you present to our eyes; and you call that
painting! art! Because you make something which looks more like a
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