| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Maria, or the Wrongs of Woman by Mary Wollstonecraft: cares which obscured the morning of my life; continual restraint
in the most trivial matters; unconditional submission to orders,
which, as a mere child, I soon discovered to be unreasonable,
because inconsistent and contradictory. Thus are we destined to
experience a mixture of bitterness, with the recollection of our
most innocent enjoyments.
"The circumstances which, during my childhood, occurred to
fashion my mind, were various; yet, as it would probably afford me
more pleasure to revive the fading remembrance of newborn delight,
than you, my child, could feel in the perusal, I will not entice
you to stray with me into the verdant meadow, to search for the
|
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 Scarecrow of Oz by L. Frank Baum: over the bed and completely hid him from view. When the
smoke rolled away, both Blinkie and the King saw that the
body of the stranger had quite disappeared, while in his
place, crouching in the middle of the bed, was a little
gray grasshopper.
One curious thing about this grasshopper was that the
last joint of its left leg was made of wood. Another
curious thing -- considering it was a grasshopper -- was
that it began talking, crying out in a tiny but sharp
voice:
"Here -- you people! What do you mean by treating me
The Scarecrow of Oz |
