| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Master and Man by Leo Tolstoy: He did not wish to sleep. He lay and thought: thought ever of
the one thing that constituted the sole aim, meaning, pleasure,
and pride of his life--of how much money he had made and might
still make, of how much other people he knew had made and
possessed, and of how those others had made and were making it,
and how he, like them, might still make much more. The
purchase of the Goryachkin grove was a matter of immense
importance to him. By that one deal he hoped to make perhaps
ten thousand rubles. He began mentally to reckon the value of
the wood he had inspected in autumn, and on five acres of which
he had counted all the trees.
Master and Man |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Road to Oz by L. Frank Baum: it was dark they lay down and slept peacefully until morning.
Long after the others were asleep, however, the shaggy man sat in the
starlight by the spring, gazing thoughtfully into its bubbling waters.
Suddenly he smiled and nodded to himself as if he had found a good
thought, after which he, too, laid himself down under a tree and was
soon lost in slumber.
In the bright morning sunshine, as they ate of the strawberries and
sweet juicy pears, Dorothy said:
"Polly, can you do any magic?"
"No dear," answered Polychrome, shaking her dainty head.
"You ought to know SOME magic, being the Rainbow's Daughter,"
The Road to Oz |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Mistress Wilding by Rafael Sabatini: "Ah yes - the manner," quoth Diana irritatingly. "We'll let that be.
Richard threw his wine in Mr. Wilding's face? What followed then? What
said Mr. Wilding?"
Sir Rowland remembered what Mr. Wilding had said, and bethought him that
it were impolitic in him to repeat it. At the same time, not having
looked for this cross-questioning, he was all unprepared with any likely
answer. He hesitated, until Ruth echoed Diana's question.
"Tell us, Sir Rowland," she begged him, "what Mr. Wilding said."
Being forced to say something, and being by nature slow-witted and
sluggish of invention, Sir Rowland was compelled, to his unspeakable
chagrin, to fall back upon the truth.
|
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 Dawn O'Hara, The Girl Who Laughed by Edna Ferber: money, because she has her highborn family disgraced, you
see? For a year they fight in the courts, and then it
stands that her money Frau Nirlanger can keep, but her
boy she cannot have. He will be taken by her highborn
family and educated, and he must forget all about his
mamma. To cry it is, ain't it? Das arme Kind! Well,
she can stand it no longer to live where her boy is,
and not to see him. So-o-o-o, Konrad Nirlanger he gets
a chance to come by Amerika where there is a big
engineering plant here in Milwaukee, and she begs her
husband he should come, because this boy she loves very
|
