| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Happy Prince and Other Tales by Oscar Wilde: of voice, and the Bengal Light felt so crushed that he began at
once to bully the little squibs, in order to show that he was still
a person of some importance.
"I was saying," continued the Rocket, "I was saying - What was I
saying?"
"You were talking about yourself," replied the Roman Candle.
"Of course; I knew I was discussing some interesting subject when I
was so rudely interrupted. I hate rudeness and bad manners of
every kind, for I am extremely sensitive. No one in the whole
world is so sensitive as I am, I am quite sure of that."
"What is a sensitive person?" said the Cracker to the Roman Candle.
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Chinese Boy and Girl by Isaac Taylor Headland:
The next evening Mr. Hsin came in with an immense
load of dolls. He had large, small, and middle sized rag dolls,
on which the nose was sewed, the ears pasted, and the
eyes and other features painted. They were rude, but as
interesting to children as other more natural and more
expensive ones, as we discovered by giving one of them to
our little girl. In not a few instances Western children
have become much more firmly attached to their Chinese
cloth dolls than any that can be found for them in America
or Europe.
|
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from King Henry VI by William Shakespeare: We come to be informed by yourselves
What the conditions of that league must be.
YORK.
Speak, Winchester; for boiling choler chokes
The hollow passage of my poison'd voice,
By sight of these our baleful enemies.
CARDINAL.
Charles, and the rest, it is enacted thus:
That, in regard King Henry gives consent,
Of mere compassion and of lenity,
To ease your country of distressful war,
|
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 The Atheist's Mass by Honore de Balzac: a sou, without a friend, without credit, and forced to work with
his five fingers to live at all! What would he do? Where would he
go to satisfy his hunger?
"Bianchon, if you have sometimes seen me hard and bitter, it was
because I was adding my early sufferings on to the insensibility,
the selfishness of which I have seen thousands of instances in
the highest circles; or, perhaps, I was thinking of the obstacles
which hatred, envy, jealousy, and calumny raised up between me
and success. In Paris, when certain people see you ready to set
your foot in the stirrup, some pull your coat-tails, others
loosen the buckle of the strap that you may fall and crack your
|
