| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Tin Woodman of Oz by L. Frank Baum: continued the Emperor.
"No; she seems quite happy," asserted the rabbit.
The Tin Woodman seemed quite disappointed to hear
this report of his old sweetheart, but the Scarecrow
reassured his friend, saying:
"Never mind, your Majesty; however happy Nimmie Amee
is now, I'm sure she will be much happier as Empress of
the Winkies."
"Perhaps," said Captain Fyter, somewhat stiffly, "she
will be still more happy to become the bride of a Tin
Soldier."
The Tin Woodman of Oz |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from On the Duty of Civil Disobedience by Henry David Thoreau: unimpaired to posterity, but each instant losing some of its
integrity? It has not the vitality and force of a single
living man; for a single man can bend it to his will. It is
a sort of wooden gun to the people themselves. But it is
not the less necessary for this; for the people must have
some complicated machinery or other, and hear its din, to
satisfy that idea of government which they have.
Governments show thus how successfully men can be imposed
upon, even impose on themselves, for their own advantage.
It is excellent, we must all allow. Yet this government
never of itself furthered any enterprise, but by the
On the Duty of Civil Disobedience |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Long Odds by H. Rider Haggard: either, and my gun was useless if I could not shut it to use the other
barrel. I might as well have had no gun.
"Meanwhile I was walking backward, keeping my eye on the lioness, who
was creeping forward on her belly without a sound, but lashing her tail
and keeping her eye on me; and in it I saw that she was coming in a few
seconds more. I dashed my wrist and the palm of my hand against the
brass rim of the cartridge till the blood poured from them--look, there
are the scars of it to this day!"
Here Quatermain held up his right hand to the light and showed us four
or five white cicatrices just where the wrist is set into the hand.
"But it was not of the slightest use," he went on, "the cartridge would
Long Odds |
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 An Inland Voyage by Robert Louis Stevenson: were within sniff of Paris, it seemed. And here were females of
our own species playing croquet, just as if Precy had been a place
in real life, instead of a stage in the fairyland of travel. For,
to be frank, the peasant woman is scarcely to be counted as a woman
at all, and after having passed by such a succession of people in
petticoats digging and hoeing and making dinner, this company of
coquettes under arms made quite a surprising feature in the
landscape, and convinced us at once of being fallible males.
The inn at Precy is the worst inn in France. Not even in Scotland
have I found worse fare. It was kept by a brother and sister,
neither of whom was out of their teens. The sister, so to speak,
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