| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Marvelous Land of Oz by L. Frank Baum: in silence.
After a while the Scarecrow remarked:
"This reminds me of old times. It was upon this grassy knoll that I once
saved Dorothy from the Stinging Bees of the Wicked Witch of the West."
"Do Stinging Bees injure pumpkins?" asked Jack, glancing around fearfully.
"They are all dead, so it doesn't matter," replied
117
the Scarecrow." And here is where Nick Chopper destroyed the Wicked Witch's
Grey Wolves."
"Who was Nick Chopper?" asked Tip.
"That is the name of my friend the Tin Woodman, answered his Majesty. And
The Marvelous Land of Oz |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Mysterious Affair at Styles by Agatha Christie: engineered her quarrel, and departed from the house. The lapse
of time, and her absence, will defeat all suspicion. Yes, it was
a clever idea! If they had left it alone, it is possible the
crime might never have been brought home to them. But they were
not satisfied. They tried to be too clever--and that was their
undoing."
Poirot puffed at his tiny cigarette, his eyes fixed on the
ceiling.
"They arranged a plan to throw suspicion on John Cavendish, by
buying strychnine at the village chemist's, and signing the
register in his hand-writing.
The Mysterious Affair at Styles |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from House of Seven Gables by Nathaniel Hawthorne: the great thoroughfare of a city all astir with customers. So many
and so magnificent shops as there were! Groceries, toy-shops,
drygoods stores, with their immense panes of plate-glass, their
gorgeous fixtures, their vast and complete assortments of
merchandise, in which fortunes had been invested; and those
noble mirrors at the farther end of each establishment, doubling
all this wealth by a brightly burnished vista of unrealities! On
one side of the street this splendid bazaar, with a multitude of
perfumed and glossy salesmen, smirking, smiling, bowing,
and measuring out the goods. On the other, the dusky old House
of the Seven Gables, with the antiquated shop-window under its
House of Seven Gables |
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 On the Duty of Civil Disobedience by Henry David Thoreau: year--no more--in the person of its tax-gatherer; this is
the only mode in which a man situated as I am necessarily
meets it; and it then says distinctly, Recognize me; and
the simplest, the most effectual, and, in the present
posture of affairs, the indispensablest mode of treating
with it on this head, of expressing your little satisfaction
with and love for it, is to deny it then. My civil
neighbor, the tax-gatherer, is the very man I have to deal
with--for it is, after all, with men and not with parchment
that I quarrel--and he has voluntarily chosen to be an agent
of the government. How shall he ever know well that he is
On the Duty of Civil Disobedience |
