| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Altar of the Dead by Henry James: approached by a low terrace of steps, in the depth of which - it
formed a dim vestibule - the raising of a curtain at the moment he
passed gave him a glimpse of an avenue of gloom with a glow of
tapers at the end. He stopped and looked up, recognising the place
as a church. The thought quickly came to him that since he was
tired he might rest there; so that after a moment he had in turn
pushed up the leathern curtain and gone in. It was a temple of the
old persuasion, and there had evidently been a function - perhaps a
service for the dead; the high altar was still a blaze of candles.
This was an exhibition he always liked, and he dropped into a seat
with relief. More than it had ever yet come home to him it struck
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Lady Windermere's Fan by Oscar Wilde: [Moves.]
LORD DARLINGTON. You shall not search my rooms. You have no right
to do so. I forbid you!
LORD WINDERMERE. You scoundrel! I'll not leave your room till I
have searched every corner of it! What moves behind that curtain?
[Rushes towards the curtain C.]
MRS. ERLYNNE. [Enters behind R.] Lord Windermere!
LORD WINDERMERE. Mrs. Erlynne!
[Every one starts and turns round. LADY WINDERMERE slips out from
behind the curtain and glides from the room L.]
MRS. ERLYNNE. I am afraid I took your wife's fan in mistake for my
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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 Deserted Woman by Honore de Balzac: He drew, as it were, for his mental album, a series of portraits of
these folk, with their angular, wrinkled faces, and hooked noses,
their crotchets and ludicrous eccentricities of dress, portraits which
possessed all the racy flavor of truth. He delighted in their
"Normanisms," in the primitive quaintness of their ideas and
characters. For a short time he flung himself into their squirrel's
life of busy gyrations in a cage. Then he began to feel the want of
variety, and grew tired of it. It was like the life of the cloister,
cut short before it had well begun. He drifted on till he reached a
crisis, which is neither spleen nor disgust, but combines all the
symptoms of both. When a human being is transplanted into an
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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 Magic of Oz by L. Frank Baum: but an ordinary little girl, she is called just "Dorothy" by everybody
and is the most popular person, next to Ozma, in all the Land of Oz.
One morning Dorothy crossed the hall of the palace and knocked on
the door of another girl named Trot, also a guest and friend of Ozma.
When told to enter, Dorothy found that Trot had company, an old
sailor-man with one wooden leg and one meat leg, who was sitting by
the open window puffing smoke from a corn-cob pipe. This sailor-man
was named Cap'n Bill, and he had accompanied Trot to the Land of Oz
and was her oldest and most faithful comrade and friend. Dorothy
liked Cap'n Bill, too, and after she had greeted him, she said to Trot:
"You know, Ozma's birthday is next month, and I've been wondering
The Magic of Oz |
