| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Wheels of Chance by H. G. Wells: great opening day of his holidays, are not to be detailed here.
How he wandered about the old town in the dusk, and up to the
Hogsback to see the little lamps below and the little stars above
come out one after another; how he returned through the
yellow-lit streets to the Yellow Hammer Coffee Tavern and supped
bravely in the commercial room--a Man among Men; how he joined in
the talk about flying-machines and the possibilities of
electricity, witnessing that fiying-machines were "dead certain
to come," and that electricity was "wonderful, wonderful"; how he
went and watched the billiard playing and said, "Left 'em"
several times with an oracular air; how he fell a-yawning; and
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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 Elixir of Life by Honore de Balzac: opened the magic crystal flask. When he stood over that face, he
was trembling so violently, that he was actually obliged to wait
for a moment. But Don Juan had acquired an early familiarity with
evil; his morals had been corrupted by a licentious court, a
reflection worthy of the Duke of Urbino crossed his mind, and it
was a keen sense of curiosity that goaded him into boldness. The
devil himself might have whispered the words that were echoing
through his brain, Moisten one of the eyes with the liquid! He
took up a linen cloth, moistened it sparingly with the precious
fluid, and passed it lightly over the right eyelid of the corpse.
The eye unclosed. . . .
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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 Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe: comfort to me afterwards that I did so, for not one grain of what I
sowed this time came to anything: for the dry months following, the
earth having had no rain after the seed was sown, it had no
moisture to assist its growth, and never came up at all till the
wet season had come again, and then it grew as if it had been but
newly sown. Finding my first seed did not grow, which I easily
imagined was by the drought, I sought for a moister piece of ground
to make another trial in, and I dug up a piece of ground near my
new bower, and sowed the rest of my seed in February, a little
before the vernal equinox; and this having the rainy months of
March and April to water it, sprung up very pleasantly, and yielded
Robinson Crusoe |
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 Tin Woodman of Oz by L. Frank Baum: confess that I can't get across the ditch, for my body
is too heavy and clumsy for me to jump the distance. I
can stretch my neck across, though, and you will notice
that I've nibbled the hay on the farther edge -- not
because I liked it, but because one must eat, and if
one can't get the sort of food he desires, he must take
what is offered or go hungry."
"Ah, I see you are a philosopher," remarked the
Scarecrow.
"No, I'm just a Hip-po-gy-raf," was the reply.
Polychrome was not afraid of the big beast. She
The Tin Woodman of Oz |
