| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Flower Fables by Louisa May Alcott: and as she could not make a fairer home than the ice-castle, the King
wished her kindred near to comfort and to bear her home. And while
the Elves wept, he told them how patiently she had toiled, how
her fadeless love had made the dark cell bright and beautiful.
These and many other things he told them; for little Violet had won
the love of many of the Frost-Spirits, and even when they killed the
flowers she had toiled so hard to bring to life and beauty, she spoke
gentle words to them, and sought to teach them how beautiful is love.
Long stayed the messenger, and deeper grew his wonder that the Fairy
could have left so fair a home, to toil in the dreary palace of his
cruel master, and suffer cold and weariness, to give life and joy to
Flower Fables |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Tanglewood Tales by Nathaniel Hawthorne: palace, and that this was the true reason why he had stolen
away Proserpina, in order that he might have something to love,
instead of cheating his heart any longer with this tiresome
magnificence. And, though he pretended to dislike the sunshine
of the upper world, yet the effect of the child's presence,
bedimmed as she was by her tears, was as if a faint and watery
sunbeam had somehow or other found its way into the enchanted
hall.
Pluto now summoned his domestics, and bade them lose no time in
preparing a most sumptuous banquet, and above all things, not
to fail of setting a golden beaker of the water of Lethe by
Tanglewood Tales |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Virginibus Puerisque by Robert Louis Stevenson: to all others, and that a man has written a book of travels in
Montenegro, is no reason why he should never have been to
Richmond.
It is surely beyond a doubt that people should be a good
deal idle in youth. For though here and there a Lord Macaulay
may escape from school honours with all his wits about him,
most boys pay so dear for their medals that they never
afterwards have a shot in their locker, and begin the world
bankrupt. And the same holds true during all the time a lad
is educating himself, or suffering others to educate him. It
must have been a very foolish old gentleman who addressed
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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 Cousin Pons by Honore de Balzac: "If you can manage that you will have eternal claims to my gratitude.
Good-day, my dear M. Fraisier. Till to-morrow--"
Fraisier went. His parting bow was a degree less cringing than on the
first occasion.
"I am to dine to-morrow with President de Marville!" he said to
himself. "Come now, I have these folk in my power. Only, to be
absolute master, I ought to be the German's legal adviser in the
person of Tabareau, the justice's clerk. Tabareau will not have me now
for his daughter, his only daughter, but he will give her to me when I
am a justice of the peace. I shall be eligible. Mlle. Tabareau, that
tall, consumptive girl with the red hair, has a house in the Place
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