| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar by Edgar Rice Burroughs: muzzle, cast a final glance at the ape-man and resumed
his feeding. His numerous family either followed his
example or stood gazing after Tarzan in mild-eyed
curiosity, until the opposite reeds swallowed him from
view.
At the river, Tarzan drank his fill and bathed. During
the heat of the day he lay up under the shade of a tree
near the ruins of his burned barns. His eyes wandered
out across the plain toward the forest, and a longing
for the pleasures of its mysterious depths possessed
his thoughts for a considerable time. With the next
Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Patchwork Girl of Oz by L. Frank Baum: man's marble face very tenderly.
"I'm going to try to save you, Unc," he said,
just as if the marble image could hear him; and
then he shook the crooked hand of the Crooked
Magician, who was already busy hanging the four
kettles in the fireplace, and picking up his
basket left the house.
The Patchwork Girl followed him, and after
them came the Glass Cat.
Chapter Six
The Journey
The Patchwork Girl of Oz |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Gorgias by Plato: disgrace, exceeds either in pain or evil--must it not be so?
POLUS: Yes.
SOCRATES: But then again, what was the observation which you just now
made, about doing and suffering wrong? Did you not say, that suffering
wrong was more evil, and doing wrong more disgraceful?
POLUS: I did.
SOCRATES: Then, if doing wrong is more disgraceful than suffering, the
more disgraceful must be more painful and must exceed in pain or in evil or
both: does not that also follow?
POLUS: Of course.
SOCRATES: First, then, let us consider whether the doing of injustice
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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 Z. Marcas by Honore de Balzac: is an immense roulette table, and every young man fancies he can hit
on a successful progression of numbers."
He offered us the tobacco I had brought that we might smoke with him;
the Doctor went to fetch our pipes; Marcas filled his, and then he
came to sit in our room, bringing the tobacco with him, since there
were but two chairs in his. Juste, as brisk as a squirrel, ran out,
and returned with a boy carrying three bottles of Bordeaux, some Brie
cheese, and a loaf.
"Hah!" said I to myself, "fifteen francs," and I was right to a sou.
Juste gravely laid five francs on the chimney-shelf.
There are immeasurable differences between the gregarious man and the
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