| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum: Before they went to see Glinda, however, they were taken to a
room of the Castle, where Dorothy washed her face and combed her
hair, and the Lion shook the dust out of his mane, and the
Scarecrow patted himself into his best shape, and the Woodman
polished his tin and oiled his joints.
When they were all quite presentable they followed the soldier
girl into a big room where the Witch Glinda sat upon a throne of rubies.
She was both beautiful and young to their eyes. Her hair was
a rich red in color and fell in flowing ringlets over her shoulders.
Her dress was pure white but her eyes were blue, and they looked
kindly upon the little girl.
The Wizard of Oz |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Cousin Pons by Honore de Balzac: and they went.
Schmucke, left alone in the room, smiled to himself like a madman free
at last to gratify a desire like the longing of pregnancy. He flung
himself down beside Pons, and yet again he held his friend in a long,
close embrace. At midnight the priest came back and scolded him, and
Schmucke returned to his prayers. At daybreak the priest went, and at
seven o'clock in the morning the doctor came to see Schmucke, and
spoke kindly and tried hard to persuade him to eat, but the German
refused.
"If you do not eat now you will feel very hungry when you come back,"
the doctor told him, "for you must go to the mayor's office and take a
|
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Unseen World and Other Essays by John Fiske: fact as this.
My other assertion, about the general culture of the community in
which such men were reared, will need a more detailed
explanation. When I say that the Athenian public was, on the
whole, the most highly cultivated public that has ever existed, I
refer of course to something more than what is now known as
literary culture. Of this there was relatively little in the days
of Athenian greatness; and this was because there was not yet
need for it or room for it. Greece did not until a later time
begin to produce scholars and savants; for the function of
scholarship does not begin until there has been an accumulation
The Unseen World and Other Essays |
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 Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte: thought on the low, even forehead; no command in that blank, brown
eye.
As I sat in my usual nook, and looked at him with the light of the
girandoles on the mantelpiece beaming full over him--for he occupied
an arm-chair drawn close to the fire, and kept shrinking still
nearer, as if he were cold, I compared him with Mr. Rochester. I
think (with deference be it spoken) the contrast could not be much
greater between a sleek gander and a fierce falcon: between a meek
sheep and the rough-coated keen-eyed dog, its guardian.
He had spoken of Mr. Rochester as an old friend. A curious
friendship theirs must have been: a pointed illustration, indeed,
Jane Eyre |
