| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling: the Cawnpore barracks were good. There was a bazaar close by, and
only three hours' work a day."
Little Toomai remembered the Cawnpore elephant-lines and said
nothing. He very much preferred the camp life, and hated those
broad, flat roads, with the daily grubbing for grass in the forage
reserve, and the long hours when there was nothing to do except to
watch Kala Nag fidgeting in his pickets.
What Little Toomai liked was to scramble up bridle paths that
only an elephant could take; the dip into the valley below; the
glimpses of the wild elephants browsing miles away; the rush of
the frightened pig and peacock under Kala Nag's feet; the blinding
The Jungle Book |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte by Karl Marx: silence of their unassuming dispositions, they had carefully organized
the government personnel. The 2d of December struck them like a bolt
from a clear sky; and the 'peoples, who, in periods of timid
despondency, gladly allow their hidden fears to be drowned by the
loudest screamers, will perhaps have become convinced that the days are
gone by when the cackling of geese could save the Capitol.
The constitution, the national assembly, the dynastic parties, the blue
and the red republicans, the heroes from Africa, the thunder from the
tribune, the flash-lightnings from the daily press, the whole
literature, the political names and the intellectual celebrities, the
civil and the criminal law, the "liberte', egalite', fraternite',"
|
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from King James Bible: these vanities unto the living God, which made heaven, and earth, and
the sea, and all things that are therein:
ACT 14:16 Who in times past suffered all nations to walk in their own
ways.
ACT 14:17 Nevertheless he left not himself without witness, in that he
did good, and gave us rain from heaven, and fruitful seasons, filling
our hearts with food and gladness.
ACT 14:18 And with these sayings scarce restrained they the people,
that they had not done sacrifice unto them.
ACT 14:19 And there came thither certain Jews from Antioch and Iconium,
who persuaded the people, and having stoned Paul, drew him out of the
King James Bible |
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 Patchwork Girl of Oz by L. Frank Baum: honey-bees here, I've eaten nothing for years.
"You must be awfully hungry," said the boy.
"I've got some bread and cheese in my basket.
Would you like that kind of food?"
"Give me a nibble and I will try it; then I
can tell you better whether it is grateful to my
appetite," returned the Woozy.
So the boy opened his basket and broke a
piece off the loaf of bread. He tossed it toward
the Woozy, who cleverly caught it in his mouth
and ate it in a twinkling.
The Patchwork Girl of Oz |
