| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Ozma of Oz by L. Frank Baum: pleasant room in Sydney, Uncle Henry was seated in an easy chair,
solemnly smoking his briar pipe. He looked sad and lonely, and his
hair was now quite white and his hands and face thin and wasted.
"Oh!" cried Dorothy, in an anxious voice, "I'm sure Uncle Henry isn't
getting any better, and it's because he is worried about me. Ozma,
dear, I must go to him at once!"
"How can you?" asked Ozma.
"I don't know," replied Dorothy; "but let us go to Glinda the Good.
I'm sure she will help me, and advise me how to get to Uncle Henry."
Ozma readily agreed to this plan and caused the Sawhorse to be
harnessed to a pretty green and pink phaeton, and the two girls rode
Ozma of Oz |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Altar of the Dead by Henry James: recognised him than the old woman turned away; but just with this
growth of opportunity came a felt strangeness that stayed him in
the very act of laying his hand on his friend's arm. It lasted but
the instant, only that space sufficed for the flash of a wild
question. Was NOT Mrs. Creston dead? - the ambiguity met him there
in the short drop of her husband's voice, the drop conjugal, if it
ever was, and in the way the two figures leaned to each other.
Creston, making a step to look at something else, came nearer,
glanced at him, started and exclaimed - behaviour the effect of
which was at first only to leave Stransom staring, staring back
across the months at the different face, the wholly other face, the
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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 Z. Marcas by Honore de Balzac: paper with another, solely to squeeze out Marcas, who in this fusion
had to make way for a rich and insolent rival, whose name was well
known, and who already had his foot in the stirrup.
Marcas relapsed into utter destitution; his haughty patron well knew
the depths into which he had cast him.
Where was he to go? The ministerial papers, privily warned, would have
nothing to say to him. The opposition papers did not care to admit him
to their offices. Marcas could side neither with the Republicans nor
with the Legitimists, two parties whose triumph would mean the
overthrow of everything that now is.
"Ambitious men like a fast hold on things," said he with a smile.
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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 Art of War by Sun Tzu: Advantages, will fail to make the best use of his men.
[Chia Lin tells us that these imply five obvious and
generally advantageous lines of action, namely: "if a certain
road is short, it must be followed; if an army is isolated, it
must be attacked; if a town is in a parlous condition, it must be
besieged; if a position can be stormed, it must be attempted; and
if consistent with military operations, the ruler's commands must
be obeyed." But there are circumstances which sometimes forbid a
general to use these advantages. For instance, "a certain road
may be the shortest way for him, but if he knows that it abounds
in natural obstacles, or that the enemy has laid an ambush on it,
The Art of War |
