| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Under the Red Robe by Stanley Weyman: march, back to quarters.'
At length I found myself driven to play my last card; much
against my will.
'Not so,' I said. 'I have my commission.'
'Produce it!' he replied incredulously.
'Do you think that I carry it with me?' I cried in scorn. 'Do
you think that when I came here, alone, and not with fifty
dragoons at my back, I carried the Cardinal's seal in my pocket
for the first lackey to find. But you shall have it. Where is
that knave of mine?'
The words were scarcely out of my mouth before a ready hand
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from United States Declaration of Independence: to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.
He has made judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure
of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of
Officers to harass our People, and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies
without the Consent of our legislatures.
He has affected to render the Military independent of
and superior to the Civil Power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction
foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws;
United States Declaration of Independence |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Ozma of Oz by L. Frank Baum: trailing his crumpled plumage in the dust as he went.
"Why, Billina!" cried Dorothy, in a shocked voice; "have you
been fighting?"
"I really think I have," retorted Billina. "Do you think I'd let that
speckled villain of a rooster lord it over ME, and claim to run this
chicken house, as long as I'm able to peck and scratch? Not if my
name is Bill!"
"It isn't Bill, it's Billina; and you're talking slang, which is very
undig'n'fied," said Dorothy, reprovingly. "Come here, Billina, and
I'll let you out; for Ozma of Oz is here, and has set us free."
So the yellow hen came to the door, which Dorothy unlatched for her to
Ozma of Oz |
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 Fisherman's Luck by Henry van Dyke: eye. "It is naught, it is naught," he says, in modest depreciation
of his triumph. But you shall see that he lingers fondly about the
place where the fish are displayed upon the grass, and does not fail
to look carefully at the scales when they are weighed, and has an
attentive ear for the comments of admiring spectators. You shall
find, moreover, that he is not unwilling to narrate the story of the
capture--how the big fish rose short, four times, to four different
flies, and finally took a small Black Dose, and played all over the
pool, and ran down a terribly stiff rapid to the next pool below,
and sulked for twenty minutes, and had to be stirred up with stones,
and made such a long fight that, when he came in at last, the hold
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