| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Dreams & Dust by Don Marquis: Could hold ye fast from me:--
Come, ah, come to me!
Three spells I have laid on the rising sun
And three on the waning moon--
Are ye held in the bonds of the night or the day
Ye must loosen your bonds and away, away!
Ye must come where I wait ye, soon--
Ah, soon! soon! soon!
Three times I have cast my words to the wind,
And thrice to the climbing sea;
If ye drift or dream with the clouds or foam
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Dawn O'Hara, The Girl Who Laughed by Edna Ferber: got into the heroine's calm gray eyes. What heroine
could remain calm-eyed when her creator's mind is filled
with roast beef? A half-hour elapses before I get back
on the track. Then appears the hero--a tall blond youth,
fair to behold. I make him two yards high, and endow him
with a pair of clothing-advertisement shoulders.
There assails my nostrils a fearful smell of
scorching. The roast! A wild rush into the kitchen. I
fling open the oven door. The roast is mahogany-colored,
and gravyless. It takes fifteen minutes of the most
desperate first-aid-to-the-injured measures before the
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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 A Man of Business by Honore de Balzac: vans.
"Once again he was fascinated by the beautiful furniture which a
wholesale dealer would have valued at six thousand francs. By the
fireside sat the wretched owner, yellow with jaundice, his head tied
up in a couple of printed handkerchiefs, and a cotton night-cap on top
of them; he was huddled up in wrappings like a chandelier, exhausted,
unable to speak, and altogether so knocked to pieces that the Count
was obliged to transact his business with the man-servant. When he had
paid down the four thousand francs, and the servant had taken the
money to his master for a receipt, Maxime turned to tell the man to
call up the vans to the door; but even as he spoke, a voice like a
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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 Through the Looking-Glass by Lewis Carroll: word to say in reply: she could only sit and look at it and gasp.
`Make a remark,' said the Red Queen: `it's ridiculous to leave
all the conversation to the pudding!'
`Do you know, I've had such a quantity of poetry repeated to me
to-day,' Alice began, a little frightened at finding that, the
moment she opened her lips, there was dead silence, and all eyes
were fixed upon her; `and it's a very curious thing, I think--
every poem was about fishes in some way. Do you know why they're
so fond of fishes, all about here?'
She spoke to the Red Queen, whose answer was a little wide of
the mark. `As to fishes,' she said, very slowly and solemnly,
Through the Looking-Glass |
