| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Catriona by Robert Louis Stevenson: varying expression, calling me by name with a sort of appeal of
tenderness, and referring and deferring to my thoughts and wishes like
an anxious or a suspected wife.
But this was not for long. As I behold her so regardless of her own
interests, which I had jeopardised and was now endeavouring to recover,
I redoubled my own coldness in the manner of a lesson to the girl. The
more she came forward, the farther I drew back; the more she betrayed
the closeness of our intimacy, the more pointedly civil I became, until
even her father (if he had not been so engrossed with eating) might
have observed the opposition. In the midst of which, of a sudden, she
became wholly changed, and I told myself, with a good deal of relief,
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Black Beauty by Anna Sewell: and when he got into his cart would trot off without a whip or a word,
and rattle down the street as merrily as if he had come out of
the queen's stables. Jerry liked the boy, and called him "Prince Charlie",
for he said he would make a king of drivers some day.
There was an old man, too, who used to come up our street with
a little coal cart; he wore a coal-heaver's hat, and looked rough and black.
He and his old horse used to plod together along the street,
like two good partners who understood each other; the horse would stop
of his own accord at the doors where they took coal of him; he used to keep
one ear bent toward his master. The old man's cry could be heard
up the street long before he came near. I never knew what he said,
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| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Alexandria and her Schools by Charles Kingsley: remained but to employ it more accurately.
One other great merit of Eratosthenes is, that he first raised Geography
to the rank of a science. His Geographica were an organic collection,
the first the world had ever seen, of all the travels and books of
earth-description heaped together in the Great Library, of which he was
for many years the keeper. He began with a geognostic book, touched on
the traces of Cataclysms and Change visible on the earth's surface;
followed by two books, one a mathematical book, the other on political
geography, and completed by a map--which one would like to see: but--
not a trace of all remains, save a few quoted fragments -
We are such stuff
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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 The Lost Princess of Oz by L. Frank Baum: he said to himself, "so I guess there are peaches here, too, if I can
find the trees."
He searched here and there, paying no attention to his way, until he
found that the trees surrounding him bore only nuts. He put some
walnuts in his pockets and kept on searching, and at last--right among
the nut trees--he came upon one solitary peach tree. It was a
graceful, beautiful tree, but although it was thickly leaved, it bore
no fruit except one large, splendid peach, rosy-cheeked and fuzzy and
just right to eat.
In his heart he doubted this statement, for this was a solitary peach
tree, while all the other fruits grew upon many trees set close to one
The Lost Princess of Oz |
