| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Fall of the House of Usher by Edgar Allan Poe: about and enshrouded the mansion.
"You must not--you shall not behold this!" said I,
shudderingly, to Usher, as I led him, with a gentle violence,
from the window to a seat. "These appearances, which bewilder
you, are merely electrical phenomena not uncommon--or it may be
that they have their ghastly origin in the rank miasma of the
tarn. Let us close this casement;--the air is chilling and
dangerous to your frame. Here is one of your favourite romances.
I will read, and you shall listen;--and so we will pass away this
terrible night together."
The antique volume which I had taken up was the "Mad
The Fall of the House of Usher |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Emerald City of Oz by L. Frank Baum: Red, will use its power to give every Whimsie a natural head as big
and fine as the false head he now wears. Then you will no longer be
ashamed because your big strong bodies have such teenty-weenty heads."
"Oh! Will you do that?" asked the Chief, eagerly.
"We surely will," promised the General.
"I'll talk to my people," said the Chief.
So he called a meeting of all the Whimsies and told them of the offer
made by the Nomes. The creatures were delighted with the bargain, and
at once agreed to fight for the Nome King and help him to conquer Oz.
One Whimsie alone seemed to have a glimmer of sense, for he asked:
"Suppose we fail to capture the Magic Belt? What will happen then,
The Emerald City of Oz |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain: says:
"Well, I don't care if I DID, I didn't DO it, anyway.
But you not only had it in mind to do it, but you
DONE it."
"I wisht I never die if I done it, duke, and that's
honest. I won't say I warn't goin' to do it, because I
WAS; but you -- I mean somebody -- got in ahead o'
me."
"It's a lie! You done it, and you got to SAY you
done it, or --"
The king began to gurgle, and then he gasps out:
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn |
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 Phaedo by Plato: in the mean between them. Did you never observe this?
Yes, I said, I have.
And do you not imagine, he said, that if there were a competition in evil,
the worst would be found to be very few?
Yes, that is very likely, I said.
Yes, that is very likely, he replied; although in this respect arguments
are unlike men--there I was led on by you to say more than I had intended;
but the point of comparison was, that when a simple man who has no skill in
dialectics believes an argument to be true which he afterwards imagines to
be false, whether really false or not, and then another and another, he has
no longer any faith left, and great disputers, as you know, come to think
|
