| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Emerald City of Oz by L. Frank Baum: "My advice is to offer to help them. Then, when we have conquered the
Land of Oz, we will take not only our twenty thousand prisoners but
all the gold and jewels we want."
"Let us take the Magic Belt, too," suggested one counselor.
"And rob the Nome King and make him our slave," said another.
"That is a good idea," declared the Grand Gallipoot. "I'd like King
Roquat for my own slave. He could black my boots and bring me my
porridge every morning while I am in bed."
"There is a famous Scarecrow in Oz. I'll take him for my slave," said
a counselor.
"I'll take Tiktok, the machine man," said another.
The Emerald City of Oz |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Girl with the Golden Eyes by Honore de Balzac: represented the horrid fish's tail with which the allegorical geniuses
of Greece have terminated their chimeras and sirens, whose figures,
like all passions, are so seductive, so deceptive.
Although Henri was not a free-thinker--the phrase is always a mockery
--but a man of extraordinary power, a man as great as a man can be
without faith, the conjunction struck him. Moreover, the strongest men
are naturally the most impressionable, and consequently the most
superstitious, if, indeed, one may call superstition the prejudice of
the first thoughts, which, without doubt, is the appreciation of the
result in causes hidden to other eyes but perceptible to their own.
The Spanish girl profited by this moment of stupefaction to let
The Girl with the Golden Eyes |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Poems by T. S. Eliot: Who found no substitute for sense;
To seize and clutch and penetrate,
Expert beyond experience,
He knew the anguish of the marrow
The ague of the skeleton;
No contact possible to flesh
Allayed the fever of the bone.
. . . . .
Grishkin is nice: her
Russian eye is underlined for emphasis;
Uncorseted, her friendly bust
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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 Manon Lescaut by Abbe Prevost: it been to me the source of profligacy and distress? Who
prevented me from leading a virtuous and tranquil life with
Manon? Why did I not marry her before I obtained any concession
from her love? Would not my father, who had the tenderest regard
for me, have given his consent, if I had taken the fair and
candid course of soliciting him? Yes, my father would himself
have cherished her as one far too good to be his son's wife! I
should have been happy in the love of Manon, in the affection of
my father, in the esteem of the world, with a moderate portion of
the good things of life, and above all with the consciousness of
virtue. Disastrous change! Into what an infamous character is
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