| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Magic of Oz by L. Frank Baum: will jump out on to the table and do their tricks. The next day I
will bring them back to the forest and make them big as ever, and
they'll have some exciting stories to tell their friends. What do you
say, Rango?"
"I say no!" answered the Gray Ape. "I won't have my monkeys
enchanted and made to do tricks for the Oz people."
"Very well," said the Wizard calmly; "then I'll go. Come, Dorothy,"
he called to the little girl, "let's start on our journey."
"Aren't you going to save those six monkeys who are giant soldiers?"
asked Rango, anxiously.
"Why should I?" returned the Wizard. "If you will not do me the
The Magic of Oz |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The King of the Golden River by John Ruskin: because not only the river was not turned into gold, but its waters
seemed much diminished in quantity. Yet he obeyed his friend the
dwarf and descended the other side of the mountains towards the
Treasure Valley; and as he went he thought he heard the noise of
water working its way under the ground. And when he came in sight
of the Treasure Valley, behold, a river, like the Golden River, was
springing from a new cleft of the rocks above it and was flowing in
innumerable streams among the dry heaps of red sand.
And as Gluck gazed, fresh grass sprang beside the new streams,
and creeping plants grew and climbed among the moistening soil.
Young flowers opened suddenly along the riversides, as stars leap
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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 Tom Grogan by F. Hopkinson Smith: In the side of this body politic the surgeon was a thorn as sharp
as any one of his scalpels. He was a hard-headed, sober-minded
Scotchman, who had been elected to represent a group of his
countrymen living in the eastern part of the village, and whose
profession, the five supposed, indicated without doubt his entire
willingness to see through a cart-wheel, especially when the hub
was silver-plated. At the first meeting of the board they learned
their mistake, but it did not worry them much. They had seven
votes to two.
The council-chamber of the board was a hall--large for
Rockville--situated over the post-office, and only two doors from
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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 The Muse of the Department by Honore de Balzac: engaged on at the time of his death, constituted the whole of these
literary remains; and the poet's last hours, full of misery and
despair, could not fail to wring the hearts of the feeling public of
the Nievre, the Bourbonnais, the Cher, and the Morvan, where he died
near Chateau-Chinon, unknown to all, even to the woman he had loved!
Of this little yellow paper volume two hundred copies were printed;
one hundred and fifty were sold--about fifty in each department. This
average of tender and poetic souls in three departments of France is
enough to revive the enthusiasm of writers as to the /Furia Francese/,
which nowadays is more apt to expend itself in business than in books.
When Monsieur de Clagny had given away a certain number of copies,
The Muse of the Department |
