| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Twilight Land by Howard Pyle: I floated on, and I would have floated past the Inn, and perhaps
have gotten into the Land of Never-Come-Back-Again, only I caught
at the branch of an apple-tree, and so I stopped myself, though
the apple-blossoms came falling down like pink and white
snowflakes.
The earth and the air and the sky were all still, just as it is
at twilight, and I heard them laughing and talking in the
tap-room of the Inn of the Sign of Mother Goose--the clinking of
glasses, and the rattling and clatter of knives and forks and
plates and dishes. That was where I wished to go.
So in I went. Mother Goose herself opened the door, and there I
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Sylvie and Bruno by Lewis Carroll: saying to myself--helplessly, as if in the clutches of a night-mare--
"they are only penciled in: no final touches as yet!" And he had a way
of ending every sentence with a sudden smile, which spread like a ripple
over that vast blank surface, and was gone in a moment, leaving behind
it such absolute solemnity that I felt impelled to murmur
"it was not he: it was somebody else that smiled!"
"Do you observe?" (such was the phrase with which the wretch began each
sentence) "Do you observe the way in which that broken arch, at the
very top of the ruin, stands out against the clear sky? It is placed
exactly right: and there is exactly enough of it. A little more, or a
little less, and all would be utterly spoiled!"
 Sylvie and Bruno |