| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Ozma of Oz by L. Frank Baum: He whistled again, and at once the martial array filed through the
silver and gold doorways and disappeared, after which the workmen
again resumed their labors at the furnaces.
Then, sad and discouraged, Ozma of Oz turned to her friends, and the
Nome King calmly reseated himself on his rock throne.
"It would be foolish for us to fight," the girl said to the Tin
Woodman. "For our brave Twenty-Seven would be quickly destroyed. I'm
sure I do not know how to act in this emergency.
"Ask the King where his kitchen is," suggested the Tiger. "I'm hungry
as a bear."
"I might pounce upon the King and tear him in pieces," remarked the
Ozma of Oz |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from A Second Home by Honore de Balzac: the paved court, which was scarcely lighted by the carriage lamps.
Suddenly the young lawyer felt a friendly hand on his shoulder, and
turning round, found himself face to face with the Judge, to whom he
bowed. As the footman let down the steps of his carriage, the old
gentleman, who had served the Convention, suspected the junior's
dilemma.
"All cats are gray in the dark," said he good-humoredly. "The Chief
Justice cannot compromise himself by putting a pleader in the right
way! Especially," he went on, "when the pleader is the nephew of an
old colleague, one of the lights of the grand Council of State which
gave France the Napoleonic Code."
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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 Hermione's Little Group of Serious Thinkers by Don Marquis: And Spook and Swami keep their tryst
with Thinkers in a Mental Mist.
You threaten her with Night and Sorrow?
Out of the Silences, I wist,
More Little Groups will rise tomorrow!
The lips of Patter ne'er are dumb,
The Futile Mills shall grind their grist
Of sand from now till Kingdom Come;
The Winds of Bunk are never whist.
You scowl and shake an honest fist --
You threaten her with Night and Sorrow?
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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 The Call of the Wild by Jack London: lip it concealed. Hal was a youngster of nineteen or twenty, with
a big Colt's revolver and a hunting-knife strapped about him on a
belt that fairly bristled with cartridges. This belt was the most
salient thing about him. It advertised his callowness--a
callowness sheer and unutterable. Both men were manifestly out of
place, and why such as they should adventure the North is part of
the mystery of things that passes understanding.
Buck heard the chaffering, saw the money pass between the man and
the Government agent, and knew that the Scotch half-breed and the
mail-train drivers were passing out of his life on the heels of
Perrault and Francois and the others who had gone before. When
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