| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Tom Sawyer, Detective by Mark Twain: Why, he's just as gentle as mush."
"Well, she's worried, anyway. Says your uncle Silas is
like a changed man, on account of all this quarreling.
And the neighbors talk about it, and lay all the blame
on your uncle, of course, because he's a preacher and
hain't got any business to quarrel. Your aunt Sally
says he hates to go into the pulpit he's so ashamed;
and the people have begun to cool toward him, and he ain't
as popular now as he used to was."
"Well, ain't it strange? Why, Aunt Polly,
he was always so good and kind and moony and
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Road to Oz by L. Frank Baum: "Because a man lives there who owes me fifteen cents, and if I went to
Butterfield and he saw me he'd want to pay me the money. I don't want
money, my dear."
"Why not?" she inquired.
"Money," declared the shaggy man, "makes people proud and haughty. I
don't want to be proud and haughty. All I want is to have people love
me; and as long as I own the Love Magnet, everyone I meet is sure to
love me dearly."
"The Love Magnet! Why, what's that?"
"I'll show you, if you won't tell any one," he answered, in a low,
mysterious voice.
The Road to Oz |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Muse of the Department by Honore de Balzac: On his return from the Luxembourg, where he had been presented
according to custom by two of his peers--the Baron de Nucingen and the
Marquis de Montriveau--the new Count met the old Duc de Chaulieu, a
former creditor, walking along, umbrella in hand, while he himself sat
perched in a low chaise on which his coat-of-arms was resplendent,
with the motto, /Deo sic patet fides et hominibus/. This contrast
filled his heart with a large draught of the balm on which the middle
class has been getting drunk ever since 1840.
Madame de la Baudraye was shocked to see her husband improved and
looking better than on the day of his marriage. The little dwarf, full
of rapturous delight, at sixty-four triumphed in the life which had so
The Muse of the Department |
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 A Child's Garden of Verses by Robert Louis Stevenson: Whene'er you are happy and cannot tell why,
The Friend of the Children is sure to be by!
He loves to be little, he hates to be big,
'T is he that inhabits the caves that you dig;
'T is he when you play with your soldiers of tin
That sides with the Frenchmen and never can win.
'T is he, when at night you go off to your bed,
Bids you go to sleep and not trouble your head;
For wherever they're lying, in cupboard or shelf,
'T is he will take care of your playthings himself!
II
A Child's Garden of Verses |
