| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Glinda of Oz by L. Frank Baum: there may be mischief done to-morrow, it was necessary
I should know about these people, whose leaders are
wild and lawless and oppress their subjects with
injustice and cruelties. My task, therefore, is to
liberate the Skeezers and the Flatheads and secure for
them freedom and happiness. I have no doubt I can
accomplish this in time."
"Just now, though, we're in a bad fix," asserted
Dorothy. "If Queen Coo-ee-oh conquers to-morrow, she
won't be nice to us, and if the Su-dic conquers, he'll
be worse."
Glinda of Oz |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Catriona by Robert Louis Stevenson: "I have maybe a suspicion of my own," says I, "but I would like fine to
hear your reasons."
"Well, I tell ye fairly, I'm horn-mad," cries Stewart. "If my one hand
could pull their Government down I would pluck it like a rotten apple.
I'm doer for Appin and for James of the Glens; and, of course, it's my
duty to defend my kinsman for his life. Hear how it goes with me, and
I'll leave the judgment of it to yourself. The first thing they have
to do is to get rid of Alan. They cannae bring in James as art and
part until they've brought in Alan first as principal; that's sound
law: they could never put the cart before the horse."
"And how are they to bring in Alan till they can catch him?" says I.
|
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Les Miserables by Victor Hugo: collecting and mounting above him, beyond the range of his vision,--
laws, prejudices, men, and deeds,--whose outlines escaped him,
whose mass terrified him, and which was nothing else than that
prodigious pyramid which we call civilization. He distinguished,
here and there in that swarming and formless mass, now near him,
now afar off and on inaccessible table-lands, some group, some detail,
vividly illuminated; here the galley-sergeant and his cudgel;
there the gendarme and his sword; yonder the mitred archbishop;
away at the top, like a sort of sun, the Emperor, crowned and dazzling.
It seemed to him that these distant splendors, far from dissipating
his night, rendered it more funereal and more black. All this--
Les Miserables |
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 Anabasis by Xenophon: take the throne from Artaxerxes, and the ensuing
return of the Greeks, in which Xenophon played a
leading role. This occurred between 401 B.C. and
March 399 B.C.
PREPARER'S NOTE
This was typed from Dakyns' series, "The Works of Xenophon," a
four-volume set. The complete list of Xenophon's works (though
there is doubt about some of these) is:
Work Number of books
The Anabasis 7
The Hellenica 7
Anabasis |
