| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum: the only things worth having in this world, no matter whether one
is a crow or a man.'
"After the crows had gone I thought this over, and decided I
would try hard to get some brains. By good luck you came along
and pulled me off the stake, and from what you say I am sure the
Great Oz will give me brains as soon as we get to the Emerald City."
"I hope so," said Dorothy earnestly, "since you seem anxious
to have them."
"Oh, yes; I am anxious," returned the Scarecrow. "It is such
an uncomfortable feeling to know one is a fool."
"Well," said the girl, "let us go." And she handed the basket
The Wizard of Oz |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Songs of Travel by Robert Louis Stevenson: Below your palace in your harbour rides:
And the seafarers, sitting safe on shore,
Like eager merchants count their treasures o'er.
One gift they find, one strange and lovely thing,
Now doubly precious since it pleased a king.
The right, my liege, is ancient as the lyre
For bards to give to kings what kings admire.
'Tis mine to offer for Apollo's sake;
And since the gift is fitting, yours to take.
To golden hands the golden pearl I bring:
The ocean jewel to the island king.
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| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Maitre Cornelius by Honore de Balzac: as the Fleming pleased the monarch. Wily, distrustful, and miserly;
equally politic, equally learned; superior, both of them, to their
epoch; understanding each other marvellously; they discarded and
resumed with equal facility, the one his conscience, the other his
religion; they loved the same Virgin, one by conviction, the other by
policy; in short, if we may believe the jealous tales of Olivier de
Daim and Tristan, the king went to the house of the Fleming for those
diversions with which King Louis XI. diverted himself. History has
taken care to transmit to our knowledge the licentious tastes of a
monarch who was not averse to debauchery. The old Fleming found, no
doubt, both pleasure and profit in lending himself to the capricious
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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 La Grande Breteche by Honore de Balzac: ruin; but this house, still standing, though being slowly destroyed by
an avenging hand, contained a secret, an unrevealed thought. At the
very least, it testified to a caprice. More than once in the evening I
boarded the hedge, run wild, which surrounded the enclosure. I braved
scratches, I got into this ownerless garden, this plot which was no
longer public or private; I lingered there for hours gazing at the
disorder. I would not, as the price of the story to which this strange
scene no doubt was due, have asked a single question of any gossiping
native. On that spot I wove delightful romances, and abandoned myself
to little debauches of melancholy which enchanted me. If I had known
the reason--perhaps quite commonplace--of this neglect, I should have
La Grande Breteche |
