| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Lost Princess of Oz by L. Frank Baum: Ozma is a captive in your city."
"No," answered the diamond-headed man. "We have no captives. No
strangers but yourselves are here, and we have never before heard of
the Royal Ozma."
"She rules over all of Oz," said Dorothy, "and so she rules your city
and you, because you are in the Winkie Country, which is a part of the
Land of Oz."
"It may be," returned the High Coco-Lorum, "for we do not study
geography and have never inquired whether we live in the Land of Oz or
not. And any Ruler who rules us from a distance and unknown to us is
welcome to the job. But what has happened to your Royal Ozma?"
The Lost Princess of Oz |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus by L. Frank Baum: down as with a burden. The Laughing Valley had claimed him for its own.
Would that we all might live in that delightful place!--but then,
maybe, it would become overcrowded. For ages it had awaited a tenant.
Was it chance that led young Claus to make his home in this happy
vale? Or may we guess that his thoughtful friends, the immortals, had
directed his steps when he wandered away from Burzee to seek a home in
the great world?
Certain it is that while the moon peered over the hilltop and flooded
with its soft beams the body of the sleeping stranger, the Laughing
Valley was filled with the queer, crooked shapes of the friendly
Knooks. These people spoke no words, but worked with skill and
The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Little Britain by Washington Irving: settled down in Paternoster Row and St. Paul's Churchyard,
where they continue to increase and multiply even at the
present day.
But though thus falling into decline, Little Britain still bears
traces of its former splendor. There are several houses ready
to tumble down, the fronts of which are magnificently enriched
with old oaken carvings of hideous faces, unknown birds,
beasts, and fishes; and fruits and flowers which it would
perplex a naturalist to classify. There are also, in Aldersgate
Street, certain remains of what were once spacious and lordly
family mansions, but which have in latter days been subdivided
|
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 Underground City by Jules Verne: to attain his object; how he was sure that the escape of fire-damp took
place at the very end of the farthest gallery in its western part,
because he had provoked small and partial explosions, or rather
little flames, enough to show the nature of the gas, which escaped
in a small jet, but with a continuous flow.
An hour after leaving the cottage, James Starr and his two companions
had gone a distance of four miles. The engineer, urged by anxiety
and hope, walked on without noticing the length of the way.
He pondered over all that the old miner had told him, and mentally weighed
all the arguments which the latter had given in support of his belief.
He agreed with him in thinking that the continued emission
|
