| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Glinda of Oz by L. Frank Baum: the girls before they reached the stairway had not the
Golden Pig suddenly run across their path. The Su-dic
tripped over the pig and fell flat, and his four men
tripped over him and tumbled in a heap. Before they
could scramble up and reach the mouth of the passage it
was too late to stop the two girls.
There was a guard on each side of the stairway, but
of course they did not see Ozma and Dorothy as they
sped past and descended the steps. Then they had to go
up five steps and down another ten, and so on, in the
same manner in which they had climbed to the top of the
Glinda of Oz |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Memoir of Fleeming Jenkin by Robert Louis Stevenson: courteous for two. Partly from a happy illusion, partly in a
tender fraud, he kept his wife before the world as a still active
partner. When he paid a call, he would have her write 'with love'
upon a card; or if that (at the moment) was too much, he would go
armed with a bouquet and present it in her name. He even wrote
letters for her to copy and sign: an innocent substitution, which
may have caused surprise to Ruffini or to Vernon Lee, if they ever
received, in the hand of Mrs. Jenkin the very obvious reflections
of her husband. He had always adored this wife whom he now tended
and sought to represent in correspondence: it was now, if not
before, her turn to repay the compliment; mind enough was left her
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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 In a German Pension by Katherine Mansfield: corner, beetroot in an old candle box, two tubs of sauerkraut, and a
twisted mass of dahlia roots--that looked as real as though they were
fighting one another, thought the Child.
She gathered the potatoes into her skirt, choosing big ones with few eyes
because they were easier to peel, and bending over the dull heap in the
silent cellar, she began to nod.
"Here, you, what are you doing down there?" cried the Frau, from the top of
the stairs. "The baby's fallen off the settle, and got a bump as big as an
egg over his eye. Come up here, and I'll teach you!"
"It wasn't me--it wasn't me!" screamed the Child, beaten from one side of
the hall to the other, so that the potatoes and beetroot rolled out of her
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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 Red Inn by Honore de Balzac: physiognomies of Jews, or Germans, and the weather-beaten faces of
mariners. The epaulets of several French officers were glittering
through the mist, and the clank of spurs and sabres echoed incessantly
from the brick floor. Some were playing cards, others argued, or held
their tongues and ate, drank, or walked about. One stout little woman,
wearing a black velvet cap, blue and silver stomacher, pincushion,
bunch of keys, silver buckles, braided hair,--all distinctive signs of
the mistress of a German inn (a costume which has been so often
depicted in colored prints that it is too common to describe here),--
well, this wife of the innkeeper kept the two friends alternately
patient and impatient with remarkable ability.
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