| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Albert Savarus by Honore de Balzac: read the books you read. Even to your boating on the lake every
incident touched me. Your letter is as lovely, as sweet as your
soul! Oh! flower of heaven, perpetually adored, could I have lived
without those dear letters, which for eleven years have upheld me
in my difficult path like a light, like a perfume, like a steady
chant, like some divine nourishment, like everything which can
soothe and comfort life.
"Do not fail me! If you knew what anxiety I suffer the day before
they are due, or the pain a day's delay can give me! Is she ill?
Is /he/? I am midway between hell and paradise.
"/O mia cara diva/, keep up your music, exercise your voice,
 Albert Savarus |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Glinda of Oz by L. Frank Baum: enormous lion, one of Ozma's regular guardians and the
most important and intelligent beast in all Oz. He
called himself the Cowardly Lion, saying that every
little danger scared him so badly that his heart
thumped against his ribs, but all who knew him knew
that the Cowardly Lion's fears were coupled with
bravery and that however much he might be frightened he
summoned courage to meet every danger he encountered.
Often he had saved Dorothy and Ozma in times of peril,
but afterward he moaned and trembled and wept because
he had been so scared.
 Glinda of Oz |