| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Divine Comedy (translated by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow) by Dante Alighieri: Vested in white, and in his countenance
Such as appears the tremulous morning star.
His arms he opened, and opened then his wings;
"Come," said he, "near at hand here are the steps,
And easy from henceforth is the ascent."
At this announcement few are they who come!
O human creatures, born to soar aloft,
Why fall ye thus before a little wind?
He led us on to where the rock was cleft;
There smote upon my forehead with his wings,
Then a safe passage promised unto me.
The Divine Comedy (translated by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow) |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Tin Woodman of Oz by L. Frank Baum: and cut off one of my arms. The tinsmith made me a tin
arm and I was not much worried, because Nimmie Amee
declared she still loved me."
Chapter Two
The Heart of the Tin Woodman
The Emperor of the Winkies paused in his story to
reach for an oil-can, with which he carefully oiled the
joints in his tin throat, for his voice had begun to
squeak a little. Woot the Wanderer, having satisfied
his hunger, watched this oiling process with much
curiosity, but begged the Tin Man to go on with his
The Tin Woodman of Oz |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from This Side of Paradise by F. Scott Fitzgerald: usually aroused the jealous suspicions of the next borrower.
All through the summer months Amory and Frog Parker went each
week to the Stock Company. Afterward they would stroll home in
the balmy air of August night, dreaming along Hennepin and
Nicollet Avenues, through the gay crowd. Amory wondered how
people could fail to notice that he was a boy marked for glory,
and when faces of the throng turned toward him and ambiguous eyes
stared into his, he assumed the most romantic of expressions and
walked on the air cushions that lie on the asphalts of fourteen.
Always, after he was in bed, there were voicesindefinite, fading,
enchantingjust outside his window, and before he fell asleep he
This Side of Paradise |
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 Louis Lambert by Honore de Balzac: a certain respect into the veriest scamps among us. For my part, I
kept near him, absorbed in studying him in silence.
Louis Lambert was slightly built, nearly five feet in height; his face
was tanned, and his hands were burnt brown by the sun, giving him an
appearance of manly vigor, which, in fact, he did not possess. Indeed,
two months after he came to the college, when studying in the
classroom had faded his vivid, so to speak, vegetable coloring, he
became as pale and white as a woman.
His head was unusually large. His hair, of a fine, bright black in
masses of curls, gave wonderful beauty to his brow, of which the
proportions were extraordinary even to us heedless boys, knowing
Louis Lambert |
