| 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: fifty-four buildings, in which lived fifty-seven thousand three
hundred and eighteen people, up to the time my story opens.
All the surrounding country, extending to the borders of the desert
which enclosed it upon every side, was full of pretty and comfortable
farmhouses, in which resided those inhabitants of Oz who preferred
country to city life.
Altogether there were more than half a million people in the Land of
Oz--although some of them, as you will soon learn, were not made of
flesh and blood as we are--and every inhabitant of that favored
country was happy and prosperous.
No disease of any sort was ever known among the Ozites, and so no one
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 Alkahest by Honore de Balzac: eventually equal to his own. The house of Claes still maintained its
moderate scale of living, and bought woodlands somewhat the worse for
wars that had laid waste the country, but which in ten years' time, if
well-preserved, would return an enormous value.
The upper ranks of society in Douai, which Monsieur Claes frequented,
appreciated so justly the noble character and qualities of his wife
that, by tacit consent she was released from those social duties to
which the provinces cling so tenaciously. During the winter season,
when she lived in town, she seldom went into society; society came to
her. She received every Wednesday, and gave three grand dinners every
month. Her friends felt that she was more at ease in her own house;
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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 Lady Baltimore by Owen Wister: brought John Mayrant's answer to my inquiry, and at the sight of his
handwriting I thoughtlessly exclaimed to my Aunt that here at last we had
all there was to be known concerning the Bombos in South Carolina; with
this I tore open the missive and embarked upon a reading of it for the
edification of all present. I pass over the beginning of John's
communication, because it was merely the observations of a man upon his
honeymoon, and was confined to laudatory accounts of scenery and weather,
and the beauty of all life when once one saw it with his eyes truly
opened.
"No Bombos ever came to Carolina," he now continued, "that I know of, or
that Aunt Josephine knows of, which is more to the point. Aunt Josephine
has copied me a passage from the writings of William Byrd, Esq., of
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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 Expression of Emotion in Man and Animals by Charles Darwin: M. Lemoine argues that, if man possessed an innate knowledge
of expression, authors and artists would not have found it
so difficult, as is notoriously the case, to describe and depict
the characteristic signs of each particular state of mind.
But this does not seem to me a valid argument.
We may actually behold the expression changing in an unmistakable
manner in a man or animal, and yet be quite unable, as I
know from experience, to analyse the nature of the change.
In the two photographs given by Duchenne of the same old man
(Plate III. figs. 5 and 6), almost every one recognized
that the one represented a true, and the other a false smile;
Expression of Emotion in Man and Animals |
