| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe: much as my father, who ruled over five or six hundred slaves."
Miss Ophelia felt rather disposed to cavil at this picture, and
was laying down her knitting to begin, but St. Clare stopped her.
"Now, I know every word you are going to say. I do not say
they _were_ alike, in fact. One fell into a condition where
everything acted against the natural tendency, and the other where
everything acted for it; and so one turned out a pretty wilful,
stout, overbearing old democrat, and the other a wilful, stout
old despot. If both had owned plantations in Louisiana, they
would have been as like as two old bullets cast in the same mould."
"What an undutiful boy you are!" said Miss Ophelia.
Uncle Tom's Cabin |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from La Grande Breteche by Honore de Balzac: very handsome; but at this moment I was startled into an indescribable
emotion at the sight. Never, said those who wrapped her in her shroud,
had any living creature been so emaciated and lived. In short, it was
awful to behold! Sickness so consumed that woman, that she was no more
than a phantom. Her lips, which were pale violet, seemed to me not to
move when she spoke to me.
" 'Though my profession has familiarized me with such spectacles, by
calling me not infrequently to the bedside of the dying to record
their last wishes, I confess that families in tears and the agonies I
have seen were as nothing in comparison with this lonely and silent
woman in her vast chateau. I heard not the least sound, I did not
La Grande Breteche |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Magic of Oz by L. Frank Baum: friends and called to them for help.
"How are you?" shouted the Wizard, putting his hands to his mouth
so they could hear him better across the water.
"We're in hard luck," shouted Cap'n Bill, in reply. "We're anchored
here and can't move till you find a way to cut the hawser."
"What does he mean by that?" asked Dorothy.
"We can't move our feet a bit!" called Trot, speaking as loud as she could.
"Why not?" inquired Dorothy.
"They've got roots on 'em," explained Trot.
It was hard to talk from so great a distance, so the Wizard said to
the Glass Cat:
The Magic 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 Menexenus by Plato: naval engagement and taking their leaders, the Spartans, at Sphagia, when
they might have destroyed them, spared their lives, and gave them back, and
made peace, considering that they should war with the fellow-countrymen
only until they gained a victory over them, and not because of the private
anger of the state destroy the common interest of Hellas; but that with
barbarians they should war to the death. Worthy of praise are they also
who waged this war, and are here interred; for they proved, if any one
doubted the superior prowess of the Athenians in the former war with the
barbarians, that their doubts had no foundation--showing by their victory
in the civil war with Hellas, in which they subdued the other chief state
of the Hellenes, that they could conquer single-handed those with whom they
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