| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Magic of Oz by L. Frank Baum: palace, to which all her closest friends were invited. It was a
queerly assorted company, indeed, for there are more quaint and unusual
characters in Oz than in all the rest of the world, and Ozma was more
interested in unusual people than in ordinary ones--just as you and I are.
On this especial birthday of the lovely girl Ruler, a long table was
set in the royal Banquet Hall of the palace, at which were place-cards
for the invited guests, and at one end of the great room was a smaller
table, not so high, for Ozma's animal friends, whom she never forgot,
and at the other end was a big table where all of the birthday gifts
were to be arranged.
When the guests arrived, they placed their gifts on this table and
The Magic of Oz |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Taras Bulba and Other Tales by Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol: from his school the grand conception of creation, the mighty beauty of
thought, the high charm of that heavenly brush.
When Tchartkoff entered the room, he found a crowd of visitors already
collected before the picture. The most profound silence, such as
rarely settles upon a throng of critics, reigned over all. He hastened
to assume the significant expression of a connoisseur, and approached
the picture; but, O God! what did he behold!
Pure, faultless, beautiful as a bride, stood the picture before him.
The critics regarded this new hitherto unknown work with a feeling of
involuntary wonder. All seemed united in it: the art of Raphael,
reflected in the lofty grace of the grouping; the art of Correggio,
Taras Bulba and Other Tales |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Dunwich Horror by H. P. Lovecraft: genuine blood there was none; only the foetid greenish-yellow
ichor which trickled along the painted floor beyond the radius
of the stickiness, and left a curious discoloration behind it.
As the presence of the three men seemed to rouse the dying thing,
it began to mumble without turning or raising its head. Dr Armitage
made no written record of its mouthings, but asserts confidently
that nothing in English was uttered. At first the syllables defied
all correlation with any speech of earth, but towards the last
there came some disjointed fragments evidently taken from the
Necronomicon, that monstrous blasphemy in quest of which the thing
had perished. These fragments, as Armitage recalls them, ran something
The Dunwich Horror |
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 Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table by Oliver Wendell Holmes: blondes. [Movement of curiosity among our ladies at table. -
Please to tell us about those blondes, said the schoolmistress.]
Why, there are blondes who are such simply by deficiency of
coloring matter, - NEGATIVE or WASHED blondes, arrested by Nature
on the way to become albinesses. There are others that are shot
through with golden light, with tawny or fulvous tinges in various
degree, - POSITIVE or STAINED blondes, dipped in yellow sunbeams,
and as unlike in their mode of being to the others as an orange is
unlike a snowball. The albino-style carries with it a wide pupil
and a sensitive retina. The other, or the leonine blonde, has an
opaline fire in her clear eye, which the brunette can hardly match
The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table |
