| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Sarrasine by Honore de Balzac: are almost as happy by ourselves, was not likely to last long with
Sarrasine. However, events surprised him when he was still under the
spell of that springtime hallucination, as naive as it was voluptuous.
In a week he lived a whole lifetime, occupied through the day in
molding the clay with which he succeeded in copying La Zambinella,
notwithstanding the veils, the skirts, the waists, and the bows of
ribbon which concealed her from him. In the evening, installed at an
early hour in his box, alone, reclining on a sofa, he made for
himself, like a Turk drunk with opium, a happiness as fruitful, as
lavish, as he wished. First of all, he familiarized himself gradually
with the too intense emotions which his mistress' singing caused him;
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Tik-Tok of Oz by L. Frank Baum: his mouth. Betsy shuddered and Hank said
"Hee-haw!" while some of the officers screamed
in terror. But the dragon did not notice that he
had done anything unusual.
"Is there fire inside of you?" asked Shaggy.
"Of course," answered Quox. "What sort of a
dragon would I be if my fire went out?"
"What keeps it going?" Betsy inquired.
"I've no idea. I only know it's there," said
Quox. "The fire keeps me alive and enables me
to move; also to think and speak."
Tik-Tok of Oz |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Early Short Fiction of Edith Wharton by Edith Wharton: had not yet lost its novelty; and somehow, in contrast to the
vague apprehensions of the previous days, it now seemed an
element of her recovered security, of the sense that, as Ned had
said, things in general had never been "righter."
She was still luxuriating in a lavish play of figures when the
parlor-maid, from the threshold, roused her with a dubiously
worded inquiry as to the expediency of serving luncheon. It was
one of their jokes that Trimmle announced luncheon as if she were
divulging a state secret, and Mary, intent upon her papers,
merely murmured an absent-minded assent.
She felt Trimmle wavering expressively on the threshold as if in
|
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 Enemies of Books by William Blades: by my friend, Mr. George Clulow, a well-known bibliophile,
and "Xylographer" to "Ye Sette of ye Odde Volumes." The date
is 1881. He writes:--
"_Apropos_ of the Gainsborough `find,' of which you tell in `The Enemies
of Books,' I should like to narrate an experience of my own, of some
twenty years ago:
"Late one evening, at my father's house, I saw a catalogue of a sale
of furniture, farm implements and books, which was announced to take
place on the following morning at a country rectory in Derbyshire,
some four miles from the nearest railway station.
"It was summer time--the country at its best--and with the attraction
|
