| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Lost Princess of Oz by L. Frank Baum: one seeing her for the first time. She was commonly called "the
Patchwork Girl" because her body and limbs were made from a
gay-colored patchwork quilt which had been cut into shape and stuffed
with cotton. Her head was a round ball stuffed in the same manner and
fastened to her shoulders. For hair, she had a mass of brown yarn,
and to make a nose for her a part of the cloth had been pulled out
into the shape of a knob and tied with a string to hold it in place.
Her mouth had been carefully made by cutting a slit in the proper
place and lining it with red silk, adding two rows of pearls for teeth
and a bit of red flannel for a tongue.
In spite of this queer make-up, the Patchwork Girl was magically alive
The Lost Princess of Oz |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Light of Western Stars by Zane Grey: will return soon, or Alfred will come for me."
As she sat down to wait she reviewed the causes which accounted
for the remarkable situation in which she found herself. That
Madeline Hammond should be alone, at a late hour, in a dingy
little Western railroad station, was indeed extraordinary.
The close of her debutante year had been marred by the only
unhappy experience of her life--the disgrace of her brother and
his leaving home. She dated the beginning of a certain
thoughtful habit of mind from that time, and a dissatisfaction
with the brilliant life society offered her. The change had been
so gradual that it was permanent before she realized it. For a
The Light of Western Stars |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Vailima Letters by Robert Louis Stevenson: before six, Taylor and I were in the saddle again fasting.
My riding boots were so wet I could not get them on, so I
must ride barefoot. The morning was fair but the roads very
muddy, the weeds soaked us nearly to the waist, Sale was
twice spilt at the fences, and we got to Apia a bedraggled
enough pair. All the way along the coast, the pate (small
wooden drum) was beating in the villages and the people
crowding to the churches in their fine clothes. Thence
through the mangrove swamp, among the black mud and the green
mangroves, and the black and scarlet crabs, to Mulinuu, to
the doctor's, where I had an errand, and so to the inn to
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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 Bucolics by Virgil: Go home, my cattle, from your grazing go!"
CORYDON
"Ye mossy springs, and grass more soft than sleep,
And arbute green with thin shade sheltering you,
Ward off the solstice from my flock, for now
Comes on the burning summer, now the buds
Upon the limber vine-shoot 'gin to swell."
THYRSIS
"Here is a hearth, and resinous logs, here fire
Unstinted, and doors black with ceaseless smoke.
Here heed we Boreas' icy breath as much
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