| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from An Historical Mystery by Honore de Balzac: riding from Cinq-Cygne and seeing smoke in the park of Gondreville,
she had supposed there was a fire; at first she thought they were burning
weeds or brush; "but later," she added, "I observed a circumstance
which I offer to the attention of the Court. I found in the frogging
of my habit and in the folds of my collar small fragments of what
appeared to be burned paper which were floating in the air."
"Was there much smoke?" asked Bordin.
"Yes," replied Mademoiselle de Cinq-Cygne, "I feared a conflagration."
"This is enough to change the whole inquiry," remarked Bordin. "I
request the Court to order an immediate examination of that region of
the park where the fire occurred."
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Bureaucracy by Honore de Balzac: with a definite proposal of marriage. Zelie earned five hundred francs
a year, Minard had fifteen hundred. Believing that they could live on
two thousand, they married without settlements, and started with the
utmost economy. They went to live, like dove-turtles, near the
barriere de Courcelles, in a little apartment at three hundred francs
a year, with white cotton curtains to the windows, a Scotch paper
costing fifteen sous a roll on the walls, brick floors well polished,
walnut furniture in the parlor, and a tiny kitchen that was very
clean. Zelie nursed her children herself when they came, cooked, made
her flowers, and kept the house. There was something very touching in
this happy and laborious mediocrity. Feeling that Minard truly loved
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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 Art of Writing by Robert Louis Stevenson: readily discovered that the heroic line consists of four
groups, or, if you prefer the phrase, contains four pauses:
'All night | the dreadless | angel | unpursued.'
Four groups, each practically uttered as one word: the
first, in this case, an iamb; the second, an amphibrachys;
the third, a trochee; and the fourth, an amphimacer; and yet
our schoolboy, with no other liberty but that of inflicting
pain, had triumphantly scanned it as five iambs. Perceive,
now, this fresh richness of intricacy in the web; this fourth
orange, hitherto unremarked, but still kept flying with the
others. What had seemed to be one thing it now appears is
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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 The Lost Princess of Oz by L. Frank Baum: "We must do as we agreed."
"Well, first of all, let us go and rescue Ozma," proposed the Wizard.
"Then our beloved Ruler may be able to advise us how to conquer Ugu
the Shoemaker." So they turned to the left and marched for half a
mile until they came to a small but deep hole in the ground. At once,
all rushed to the brim to peer into the hole, but instead of finding
there Princess Ozma of Oz, all that they saw was Button-Bright, who
was lying asleep on the bottom.
Their cries soon wakened the boy, who sat up and rubbed his eyes.
When he recognized his friends, he smiled sweetly, saying, "Found
again!"
The Lost Princess of Oz |
