| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Works of Samuel Johnson by Samuel Johnson: he might not be tempted by plenty to profusion.
This method would have succeeded in a place
where there are no panders to folly and
extravagance, but was now likely to have produced
pernicious consequences; for we have discovered a
treaty with a broker, whose daughter he seems
disposed to marry, on condition that he shall be supplied
with present money, for which he is to repay thrice
the value at the death of his father.
There was now no time to be lost. A domestick
consultation was immediately held, and he was
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Lost Princess of Oz by L. Frank Baum: finally agreed, although rather ungraciously, to put the little Bear's
wisdom to the test once more. So he sat the little one on his knee
and turned the crank, and the Wizard himself asked the questions in a
very respectful tone of voice. "Where is Ozma?" was his first query.
"Here in this room," answered the little Pink Bear.
They all looked around the room, but of course did not see her. "In
what part of the room is she?" was the Wizard's next question.
"In Button-Bright's pocket," said the little Pink Bear.
This reply amazed them all, you may be sure, and although the three
girls smiled and Scraps yelled "Hoo-ray!" in derision, the Wizard
turned to consider the matter with grave thoughtfulness. "In which
The Lost Princess 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 Secrets of the Princesse de Cadignan by Honore de Balzac: Duc de Maufrigneuse, early in life, had had relations with the
Duchesse d'Uxelles. About the year 1814, when Monsieur de Maufrigneuse
was forty-six years of age, the duchess, pitying his poverty, and
seeing that he stood very well at court, gave him her daughter Diane,
then in her seventeenth year, and possessing, in her own right, some
fifty or sixty thousand francs a year, not counting her future
expectations. Mademoiselle d'Uxelles thus became a duchess, and, as
her mother very well knew, she enjoyed the utmost liberty. The duke,
after obtaining the unexpected happiness of an heir, left his wife
entirely to her own devices, and went off to amuse himself in the
various garrisons of France, returning occasionally to Paris, where he
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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 Historical Lecturers and Essays by Charles Kingsley: for several centuries, of the unexpected and incalculable forces
which lie hid in man? Believe me, man's passions, heated to
igniting point, rather than his prudence cooled down to freezing
point, are the normal causes of all great human movement. And a
truer law of social science than any that political economists are
wont to lay down, is that old DOV' E LA DONNA? of the Italian judge,
who used to ask, as a preliminary to every case, civil or criminal,
which was brought before him, Dov' e la donna? "Where is the lady?"
certain, like a wise old gentleman, that a woman was most probably
at the bottom of the matter.
Strangeness? Romance? Did any of you ever read--if you have not
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