| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Enchanted Island of Yew by L. Frank Baum: girl friends, Berna and Helda, into captivity, shutting them up in his
own gloomy castle.
The Red Rogue thought he had done a very clever thing, and had no fear
of the consequences until one of his men came running up to the castle
to announce that Prince Marvel and his companions were approaching to
rescue the Lady Seseley.
"How many of them are there?" demanded the Red Rogue.
"There are eight, altogether," answered the man, "but two of them
are girls."
"And they expect to force me to give up my captives?" asked the Red
One, laughing with a noise like the roar of a waterfall. "Why, I
The Enchanted Island of Yew |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Protagoras by Plato: which justice and temperance and holiness are parts; or whether all these
are only the names of one and the same thing: that is the doubt which
still lingers in my mind.
There is no difficulty, Socrates, in answering that the qualities of which
you are speaking are the parts of virtue which is one.
And are they parts, I said, in the same sense in which mouth, nose, and
eyes, and ears, are the parts of a face; or are they like the parts of
gold, which differ from the whole and from one another only in being larger
or smaller?
I should say that they differed, Socrates, in the first way; they are
related to one another as the parts of a face are related to the whole
|
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Virginian by Owen Wister: He prayeth best who loveth best
All things both great and small;
For the dear God who loveth us,
He made and loveth all."
These lines are the pure gold. They are good to teach children;
because after the children come to be men, they may believe at
least some part of them still. The Virginian did not know
them,--but his heart had taught him many things. I doubt if
Balaam knew them either. But on him they would have been as
pearls to swine.
"So you've quit the round-up?" he resumed to Shorty.
The Virginian |
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 Warlord of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs: shall not insist."
"None shall leave the palace tonight," replied the Jeddak of Kaol,
"and Matai Shang will give us assurance that no harm will come
to the two women?"
The thern assented with a nod. A few moments later Kulan Tith
indicated that the audience was at an end, and at Thuvan Dihn's
invitation I accompanied the Jeddak of Ptarth to his own apartments,
where we sat until daylight, while he listened to the account of
my experiences upon his planet and to all that had befallen
The Warlord of Mars |
