| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Tik-Tok of Oz by L. Frank Baum: Polychrome had been a little restless during the
last hour or two. The lovely Daughter of the Rain
how knew that she had now done all in her power to
assist her earth friends, and so she began to long
for her sky home.
"I think," she said, after listening intently,
"that it is beginning to rain. The Rain King is my
uncle, you know, and perhaps he has read my
thoughts and is going to help me. Anyway I must
take a look at the sky and make sure."
So she jumped up and ran through the passage to
Tik-Tok of Oz |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Ancient Regime by Charles Kingsley: as intellectual; and yet one may demand that everyone should judge
them fairly--which can only be done by putting himself in their
place; and any fair judgment of them will, I think, lead to the
conclusion that they were not mere destroyers, inflamed with hate of
everything which mankind had as yet held sacred. Whatever sacred
things they despised, one sacred thing they reverenced, which men
had forgotten more and more since the seventeenth century--common
justice and common humanity. It was this, I believe, which gave
them their moral force. It was this which drew towards them the
hearts, not merely of educated bourgeois and nobles (on the menu
peuple they had no influence, and did not care to have any), but of
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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 Idylls of the King by Alfred Tennyson: Then, ere that last weird battle in the west,
There came on Arthur sleeping, Gawain killed
In Lancelot's war, the ghost of Gawain blown
Along a wandering wind, and past his ear
Went shrilling, 'Hollow, hollow all delight!
Hail, King! tomorrow thou shalt pass away.
Farewell! there is an isle of rest for thee.
And I am blown along a wandering wind,
And hollow, hollow, hollow all delight.'
And fainter onward, like wild birds that change
Their season in the night and wail their way
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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 Gobseck by Honore de Balzac: position on a hearth stool between her daughter and Derville.
"The time has come for telling a story, which should modify your
judgment as to Ernest de Restaud's prospects."
"A story?" cried Camille. "Do begin at once, monsieur."
The glance that Derville gave the Vicomtesse told her that this tale
was meant for her. The Vicomtesse de Grandlieu, be it said, was one of
the greatest ladies in the Faubourg Saint-Germain, by reason of her
fortune and her ancient name; and though it may seem improbable that a
Paris attorney should speak so familiarly to her, or be so much at
home in her house, the fact is nevertheless easily explained.
When Mme. de Grandlieu returned to France with the Royal family, she
Gobseck |
