| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Cousin Pons by Honore de Balzac: continued he; "he said that I should soon be about again as usual. You
have killed me, ruined me, murdered me!"
"Tut, tut, tut!" cried La Cibot, "there you go! I am killing you, am
I? Mercy on us! these are the pretty things that you are always
telling M. Schmucke when my back is turned. I hear all that you say,
that I do! You are a monster of ingratitude."
"But you do not know that if I am only away for another fortnight,
they will tell me that I have had my day, that I am old-fashioned, out
of date, Empire, rococo, when I go back. Garangeot will have made
friends all over the theatre, high and low. He will lower the pitch to
suit some actress that cannot sing, he will lick M. Gaudissart's
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from A Footnote to History by Robert Louis Stevenson: others are pretty, funny, and attractive. Games are popular.
Cricket-matches, where a hundred played upon a side, endured at
times for weeks, and ate up the country like the presence of an
army. Fishing, the daily bath, flirtation; courtship, which is
gone upon by proxy; conversation, which is largely political; and
the delights of public oratory, fill in the long hours.
But the special delight of the Samoan is the MALANGA. When people
form a party and go from village to village, junketing and
gossiping, they are said to go on a MALANGA. Their songs have
announced their approach ere they arrive; the guest-house is
prepared for their reception; the virgins of the village attend to
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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 The Enchanted Island of Yew by L. Frank Baum: never heard that any one, from that time forth, ever succeeded in
gaining admittance to the hidden kingdom. So its subsequent history
is unknown.
King Terribus also bade the prince an affectionate farewell and rode
back to his own kingdom; and burly Wul-Takim accompanied him as far as
the cave, where the fifty-eight reformed thieves awaited him.
Nerle's mother gladly adopted the Lady Seseley and her two companions,
and thereafter they made their home at the baron's castle. And years
afterward, when they had grown to be women, Seseley was married to
Nerle and became the lady of the castle herself.
Prince Marvel enjoyed the feasting and dancing at the castle very
The Enchanted Island of Yew |
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 Riverman by Stewart Edward White: The boomerang worked like a charm. The men had been grumbling at an
apparently peaceful yielding of the point at issue, and would have
sacked out many of the blazed logs if Orde had not held them rigidly
to it. Now their spirits flamed into joy again. The sorting went
like clockwork. Orde, in personal charge, watched that through the
different openings in his "boomerang" the "H" logs were shunted into
the river. Shortly the channel was full of logs floating merrily
away down the little blue wavelets. After a while Orde handed over
his job to Tom North.
"Can't stand it any longer, boys," said he. "I've got to go down
and see how the Dutchman is making it."
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