| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Philosophy 4 by Owen Wister: unbuttoned at the collar. They were listening with gloomy voracity to
the instruction of a third. They sat at a table bared of its customary
sporting ornaments, and from time to time they questioned, sucked their
pencils, and scrawled vigorous, laconic notes. Their necks and faces
shone with the bloom of out-of-doors. Studious concentration was
evidently a painful novelty to their features. Drops of perspiration
came one by one from their matted hair, and their hands dampened the
paper upon which they wrote. The windows stood open wide to the May
darkness, but nothing came in save heat and insects; for spring, being
behind time, was making up with a sultry burst at the end, as a delayed
train makes the last few miles high above schedule speed. Thus it has
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Emerald City of Oz by L. Frank Baum: "Why is the colander the High Priest?"
"He's the holiest thing we have in the kingdom," replied King Kleaver.
"Except me," said a sieve. "I'm the whole thing when it comes to holes."
"What we need," remarked the King, rebukingly, "is a wireless sieve. I
must speak to Marconi about it. These old-fashioned sieves talk too
much. Now, it is the duty of the King's Counselors to counsel the
King at all times of emergency, so I beg you to speak out and advise
me what to do with these prisoners."
"I demand that they be killed several times, until they are dead!"
shouted a pepperbox, hopping around very excitedly.
"Compose yourself, Mr. Paprica," advised the King. "Your remarks are
The Emerald City of Oz |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Songs of Travel by Robert Louis Stevenson: Schooner 'Equator.'
XXXIV - TO MY OLD FAMILIARS
DO you remember - can we e'er forget? -
How, in the coiled-perplexities of youth,
In our wild climate, in our scowling town,
We gloomed and shivered, sorrowed, sobbed and feared?
The belching winter wind, the missile rain,
The rare and welcome silence of the snows,
The laggard morn, the haggard day, the night,
The grimy spell of the nocturnal town,
Do you remember? - Ah, could one forget!
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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 Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad: or `Now I will never shake him by the hand,' but, `Now I
will never hear him.' The man presented himself as a voice.
Not of course that I did not connect him with some sort of action.
Hadn't I been told in all the tones of jealousy and admiration
that he had collected, bartered, swindled, or stolen more ivory
than all the other agents together? That was not the point.
The point was in his being a gifted creature, and that of all his
gifts the one that stood out preeminently, that carried with it
a sense of real presence, was his ability to talk, his words--
the gift of expression, the bewildering, the illuminating,
the most exalted and the most contemptible, the pulsating
Heart of Darkness |
