| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Tik-Tok of Oz by L. Frank Baum: or to shed any blood--unless it is absolutely
necessary."
"All right," replied Tik-Tok; "but I do not
think Rug-ge-do would bleed if I filled him full
of holes and put him in a ci-der press."
Then the officers fell in line, the four
Generals abreast and then the four Colonels and
the four Majors and the four Captains. They drew
their glittering swords and commanded Tik-Tok to
march, which he did. Twice he fell down, being
tripped by the rough rocks, but when he struck the
Tik-Tok of Oz |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Pocket Diary Found in the Snow by Grace Isabel Colbron and Augusta Groner: still smells fresh, but it is so damp here, the paper may have
been older. I do not know surely on what day it is that I begin
to write this narrative. I do not know either whether I may not
have been ill for days and weeks; I do not know what may have been
the matter with me - I know only that I was unconscious, and that
when I came to myself again, I was here in this gloomy room. Did
any physician see me? I have seen no one until to-day except the
old woman, whose name I do not know and who has so little to say.
She is kind to me otherwise, but I am afraid of her hard face and
of the smile with which she answers all my questions and entreaties.
"You are ill." These are the only words that she has ever said
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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 Expression of Emotion in Man and Animals by Charles Darwin: out of a thousand who has never studied the subject, is able
to say precisely what change passes over the sufferer's face.
Hence probably it is that this expression is not even alluded to,
as far as I have noticed, in any work of fiction, with the exception
of `Red Gauntlet' and of one other novel; and the authoress
of the latter, as I am informed, belongs to the famous family
of actors just alluded to; so that her attention may have been
specially called to the subject.
The ancient Greek sculptors were familiar with the expression, as shown
in the statues of the Laocoon and Arretino; but, as Duchenne remarks,
they carried the transverse furrows across the whole breadth
Expression of Emotion in Man and Animals |
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 Cratylus by Plato: In the later analysis of language, we trace the opposite and contrasted
elements of the individual and nation, of the past and present, of the
inward and outward, of the subject and object, of the notional and
relational, of the root or unchanging part of the word and of the changing
inflexion, if such a distinction be admitted, of the vowel and the
consonant, of quantity and accent, of speech and writing, of poetry and
prose. We observe also the reciprocal influence of sounds and conceptions
on each other, like the connexion of body and mind; and further remark that
although the names of objects were originally proper names, as the
grammarian or logician might call them, yet at a later stage they become
universal notions, which combine into particulars and individuals, and are
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