| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Road to Oz by L. Frank Baum: Land of Oz in the end, somehow 'r other; so I may get there this time.
But I can't promise, you know; all I can do is wait and see."
"Will the Scarecrow scare me?" asked Button-Bright.
"No; 'cause you're not a crow," she returned. "He has the loveliest
smile you ever saw--only it's painted on and he can't help it."
Luncheon being over they started again upon their journey, the shaggy
man, Dorothy and Button-Bright walking soberly along, side by side, and
the Rainbow's Daughter dancing merrily before them.
Sometimes she darted along the road so swiftly that she was nearly out
of sight, then she came tripping back to greet them with her silvery
laughter. But once she came back more sedately, to say:
The Road to Oz |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from A Daughter of Eve by Honore de Balzac: Blondet, the most judicious mind of the day,--judicious for others,
never for himself, like some great lawyers unable to manage their own
affairs,--was magnificent in such a discussion. The upshot was that he
advised Nathan not to apostatize too suddenly.
"Napoleon said it; you can't make young republics of old monarchies.
Therefore, my dear fellow, become the hero, the support, the creator
of the Left Centre in the new Chamber, and you'll succeed. Once
admitted into political ranks, once in the government, you can be what
you like,--of any opinion that triumphs."
Nathan was bent on creating a daily political journal and becoming the
absolute master of an enterprise which should absorb into it the
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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 Damnation of Theron Ware by Harold Frederic: and doing precisely the things he thought and did a few
years before, than he would among Kurds or Esquimaux.
But the woman is totally different. She is infinitely
more precocious as a girl. At an age when her slow brother
is still stubbing along somewhere in the neolithic period,
she has flown way ahead to a kind of mediaeval stage,
or dawn of mediaevalism, which is peculiarly her own.
Having got there, she stays there; she dies there.
The boy passes her, as the tortoise did the hare.
He goes on, if he is a philosopher, and lets her remain
in the dark ages, where she belongs. If he happens to be
The Damnation of Theron Ware |
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 Twelve Stories and a Dream by H. G. Wells: than the hips; turn-down collar, ready-made short jacket, trousers
baggy and a little frayed at the heels. That's how he took me.
I came very quietly up the staircase. I did not carry a light,
you know--the candles are on the landing table and there is that lamp--
and I was in my list slippers, and I saw him as I came up. I stopped
dead at that--taking him in. I wasn't a bit afraid. I think that
in most of these affairs one is never nearly so afraid or excited
as one imagines one would be. I was surprised and interested.
I thought, 'Good Lord! Here's a ghost at last! And I haven't believed
for a moment in ghosts during the last five-and-twenty years.'"
"Um," said Wish.
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