| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from All's Well That Ends Well by William Shakespeare: Be bold you do so grow in my requital
As nothing can unroot you. In happy time;--
[Enter a GENTLEMAN.]
This man may help me to his majesty's ear,
If he would spend his power.--God save you, sir.
GENTLEMAN.
And you.
HELENA.
Sir, I have seen you in the court of France.
GENTLEMAN.
I have been sometimes there.
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from A Kidnapped Santa Claus by L. Frank Baum: These little people he had often found very useful in helping him to
distribute his gifts to the children, and when their master was so
suddenly dragged from the sleigh they were all snugly tucked
underneath the seat, where the sharp wind could not reach them.
The tiny immortals knew nothing of the capture of Santa Claus until
some time after he had disappeared. But finally they missed his
cheery voice, and as their master always sang or whistled on his
journeys, the silence warned them that something was wrong.
Little Wisk stuck out his head from underneath the seat and found
Santa Claus gone and no one to direct the flight of the reindeer.
"Whoa!" he called out, and the deer obediently slackened speed and
A Kidnapped Santa Claus |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Domestic Peace by Honore de Balzac: ensconced yourself."
"Oh, my dear, good Leon," said she in a coaxing tone, "I could not
resist the happiness of seeing you without your seeing me. My aunt
took me to this ball, and I was very happy there!"
This speech disarmed the Count's looks of their assumed severity, for
he had been blaming himself while dreading his wife's return, no doubt
fully informed at the ball of an infidelity he had hoped to hide from
her; and, as is the way of lovers conscious of their guilt, he tried,
by being the first to find fault, to escape her just anger. Happy in
seeing her husband smile, and in finding him at this hour in a room
whither of late he had come more rarely, the Countess looked at him so
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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 Country of the Pointed Firs by Sarah Orne Jewett: I'm going to show you her best tea things she thought so much of,"
said the master of the house, opening the door of a shallow
cupboard. "That's real chiny, all of it on those two shelves," he
told me proudly. "I bought it all myself, when we was first
married, in the port of Bordeaux. There never was one single piece
of it broke until-- Well, I used to say, long as she lived, there
never was a piece broke, but long at the last I noticed she'd look
kind o' distressed, an' I thought 'twas 'count o' me boastin'.
When they asked if they should use it when the folks was here to
supper, time o' her funeral, I knew she'd want to have everything
nice, and I said 'certain.' Some o' the women they come runnin' to
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