| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Fisherman's Luck by Henry van Dyke: travelling in eternity."
"It is just ten o'clock," I answered, "and the landlord says there
will be a hot supper of trout ready for us in five minutes."
It would be vain to attempt to give a daily record of the whole
journey in which we made this fair beginning. It was a most idle
and unsystematic pilgrimage. We wandered up and down, and turned
aside when fancy beckoned. Sometimes we hurried on as fast as the
horses would carry us, driving sixty or seventy miles a day;
sometimes we loitered and dawdled, as if we did not care whether we
got anywhere or not. If a place pleased us, we stayed and tried the
fishing. If we were tired of driving, we took to the water, and
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Lesser Hippias by Plato: a man telling a falsehood, or doing an injury or any sort of harm to
another in ignorance. And the laws are obviously far more severe on those
who lie or do evil, voluntarily, than on those who do evil involuntarily.
SOCRATES: You see, Hippias, as I have already told you, how pertinacious I
am in asking questions of wise men. And I think that this is the only good
point about me, for I am full of defects, and always getting wrong in some
way or other. My deficiency is proved to me by the fact that when I meet
one of you who are famous for wisdom, and to whose wisdom all the Hellenes
are witnesses, I am found out to know nothing. For speaking generally, I
hardly ever have the same opinion about anything which you have, and what
proof of ignorance can be greater than to differ from wise men? But I have
|
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Emerald City of Oz by L. Frank Baum: to re-stuff myself with when my interior gets musty or out of shape."
"Are you able to re-stuff yourself without help?" asked Aunt Em. "I
should think that after the straw was taken out of you there wouldn't
be anything left but your clothes."
"You are almost correct, madam," he answered. "My servants do the
stuffing, under my direction. For my head, in which are my excellent
brains, is a bag tied at the bottom. My face is neatly painted upon
one side of the bag, as you may see. My head does not need re-stuffing,
as my body does, for all that it requires is to have the face touched up
with fresh paint occasionally."
It was not far from the Scarecrow's mansion to the farm of Jack
The Emerald City of Oz |
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 Mayflower Compact: Mr. William Brewster Gilbert Winslow
Isaac Allerton Edmund Margesson
Miles Standish Peter Brown
John Alden Richard Bitteridge
John Turner George Soule
Francis Eaton Edward Tilly
James Chilton John Tilly
John Craxton Francis Cooke
John Billington Thomas Rogers
Joses Fletcher Thomas Tinker
John Goodman John Ridgate
|
