| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Far From the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy: arrested eye. The truth was, that as she now stood --
excited, wild, and honest as the day -- her alluring
beauty bore out so fully the epithets he had bestowed
upon it that he was quite startled at his temerity in
advancing them as false. He said mechanically, "Ah,
why?" and continued to look at her.
"And my workfolk see me following you about the
field, and are wondering. O, this is dreadful!" she
went on, unconscious of the transmutation she was
effecting.
"I did not quite mean you to accept it at first, for it
Far From the Madding Crowd |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Walking by Henry David Thoreau: in which it thrives.
The West is preparing to add its fables to those of the East. The
valleys of the Ganges, the Nile, and the Shine having yielded
their crop, it remains to be seen what the valleys of the Amazon,
the Plate, the Orinoco, the St. Lawrence, and the Mississippi
will produce. Perchance, when, in the course of ages, American
liberty has become a fiction of the past--as it is to some extent
a fiction of the present--the poets of the world will be inspired
by American mythology.
The wildest dreams of wild men, even, are not the less true,
though they may not recommend themselves to the sense which is
Walking |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Magic of Oz by L. Frank Baum: monkey tribes, who were hard to keep in order because they teased the
other animals and were full of mischievous tricks. Back of the
monkeys were the pumas, jaguars, tigers and lions, and their kind;
next the bears, all sizes and colors; after them bisons, wild asses,
zebras and unicorns; farther on the rhinoceri and hippopotami, and at
the far edge of the forest, close to the trees that shut in the
clearing, was a row of thick-skinned elephants, still as statues but
with eyes bright and intelligent.
Many other kinds of beasts, too numerous to mention, were there, and
some were unlike any beasts we see in the menageries and zoos in our
country. Some were from the mountains west of the forest, and some
The Magic of Oz |
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 Albert Savarus by Honore de Balzac: by the false Lamparini, who came forward to meet him, welcomed him
with the best possible grace, and took him to walk on a terrace whence
there was a view of Geneva, the Jura, the hills covered with villas,
and below them a wide expanse of the lake.
"My wife is faithful to the lakes, you see," he remarked, after
pointing out the details to his visitor. "We have a sort of concert
this evening," he added, as they returned to the splendid Villa
Jeanrenaud. "I hope you will do me and the Princess the pleasure of
seeing you. Two months of poverty endured in intimacy are equal to
years of friendship."
Though he was consumed by curiosity, Rodolphe dared not ask to see the
Albert Savarus |
