| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Recruit by Honore de Balzac: generosities, which the laws of the day called crimes, and punished on
the scaffold. The public prosecutor remarked in a low voice that it
would be best to say no more, but to do their best to save the poor
woman from the abyss toward which she was hurrying.
"If you talk about this affair," he said, "I shall be obliged to take
notice of it, and search her house, and THEN--"
He said no more, but all present understood what he meant.
The sincere friends of Madame de Dey were so alarmed about her, that
on the morning of the third day, the procureur-syndic of the commune
made his wife write her a letter, urging her to receive her visitors
as usual that evening. Bolder still, the old merchant went himself in
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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: of us and now Rug-gedo is safe and we are far a-
way in a strange land."
The Citizen was silent a moment and seemed to be
thinking. Then he said:
"Most noble Private Soldier, I must inform you
that by the laws of our country anyone who comes
through the Forbidden Tube must be tortured for
nine days and ten nights and then thrown back into
the Tube. But it is wise to disregard laws when
they conflict with justice, and it seems that you
and your followers did not disobey our laws
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 The Heritage of the Desert by Zane Grey: leaped up, forehoofs pawing the air, and his long shrill cry was neither
whistle, snort, nor screech, but all combined. He came down, missing
Charger with his hoofs, sliding off his haunches. The Indian, his bronze
muscles rippling, close-hauled on the rope, making half hitches round his
bony wrist.
In a whirl of dust the roan drew closer to the gray, and Silvermane began
a mad race around the corral. The roan ran with him nose to nose. When
Silvermane saw he could not shake him, he opened his jaws, rolled back
his lip in an ugly snarl, his white teeth glistening, and tried to bite.
But the Indian's moccasined foot shot up under the stallion's ear and
pressed him back. Then the roan hugged Silvermane so close that half the
The Heritage of the Desert |
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 Maria, or the Wrongs of Woman by Mary Wollstonecraft: this time-serving politeness: now I imagined that I only felt pity;
yet it would have puzzled a casuist to point out in what the exact
difference consisted.
"This friend began now, in confidence, to discover to me the
real state of my husband's affairs. 'Necessity,' said Mr. S----;
why should I reveal his name? for he affected to palliate the
conduct he could not excuse, 'had led him to take such steps, by
accommodation bills, buying goods on credit, to sell them for ready
money, and similar transactions, that his character in the commercial
world was gone. He was considered,' he added, lowering his voice,
'on 'Change as a swindler.'
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