| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum: my back and we will make the attempt."
The Scarecrow sat upon the Lion's back, and the big beast
walked to the edge of the gulf and crouched down.
"Why don't you run and jump?" asked the Scarecrow.
"Because that isn't the way we Lions do these things," he replied.
Then giving a great spring, he shot through the air and landed safely
on the other side. They were all greatly pleased to see how easily
he did it, and after the Scarecrow had got down from his back the Lion
sprang across the ditch again.
Dorothy thought she would go next; so she took Toto in her
arms and climbed on the Lion's back, holding tightly to his mane
The Wizard 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: came in the like guarded tone, and soon we had knocked together in the
dark.
"Is this you at last, Davie?" he whispered.
"Just myself," said I.
"God, man, but I've been wearying to see ye!" says he. "I've had the
longest kind of a time. A' day, I've had my dwelling into the inside
of a stack of hay, where I couldnae see the nebs of my ten fingers; and
then two hours of it waiting here for you, and you never coming! Dod,
and ye're none too soon the way it is, with me to sail the morn! The
morn? what am I saying? - the day, I mean."
"Ay, Alan, man, the day, sure enough," said I. "It's past twelve now,
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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 The Contrast by Royall Tyler: pre-eminence in danger and virtue. They exhibited
to the world a noble spectacle,--a number of inde-
pendent states united by a similarity of language,
sentiment, manners, common interest, and common
consent, in one grand mutual league of protection.
And, thus united, long might they have continued the
cherishers of arts and sciences, the protectors of the
oppressed, the scourge of tyrants, and the safe asylum
of liberty. But when foreign gold, and still more per-
nicious foreign luxury, had crept among them, they
sapped the vitals of their virtue. The virtues of their
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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 Seraphita by Honore de Balzac: question each other and reply without mistake'; and yet there are
mineral substances which exhibit sympathies as far off from each other
as those of which I speak. You believe in the power of the electricity
which you find in the magnet and you deny that which emanates from the
soul! According to you, the moon, whose influence upon the tides you
think fixed, has none whatever upon the winds, nor upon navigation,
nor upon men; she moves the sea, but she must not affect the sick
folk; she has undeniable relations with one half of humanity, and
nothing at all to do with the other half. These are your vaunted
certainties!
"Let us go a step further. You believe in physics. But your physics
Seraphita |
