| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Patchwork Girl of Oz by L. Frank Baum: higher until finally they came to a great rift in
a part of the mountain, where the rock seemed to
have split in two and left high walls on either
side.
"S'pose we go this way," suggested Dorothy;
it's much easier walking than to climb over
the hills."
"How about that sign?" asked Ojo.
"What sign?" she inquired.
The Munchkin boy pointed to some words
painted on the wall of rock beside them, which
The Patchwork Girl of Oz |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Gobseck by Honore de Balzac: sharply against the pillow as if the profile had been cast in bronze;
he stretched out a lean arm and bony hand along the coverlet and
clutched it, as if so he would fain keep his hold on life, then he
gazed hard at the grate, cold as his own metallic eyes, and died in
full consciousness of death. To us--the portress, the old pensioner,
and myself--he looked like one of the old Romans standing behind the
Consuls in Lethiere's picture of the Death of the Sons of Brutus.
" 'He was a good-plucked one, the old Lascar!' said the pensioner in
his soldierly fashion.
"But as for me, the dying man's fantastical enumeration of his riches
still sounding in my ears, and my eyes, following the direction of
Gobseck |
