| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Road to Oz by L. Frank Baum: and make her feel anxious.
"I'm 'fraid, Shaggy Man," she said, with a sigh, "that we're lost!"
"That's nothing to be afraid of," he replied, throwing away the core
of his apple and beginning to eat another one. "Each of these roads
must lead somewhere, or it wouldn't be here. So what does it matter?"
"I want to go home again," she said.
"Well, why don't you?" said he.
"I don't know which road to take."
"That is too bad," he said, shaking his shaggy head gravely. "I wish
I could help you; but I can't. I'm a stranger in these parts."
"Seems as if I were, too," she said, sitting down beside him. "It's
The Road to Oz |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf: disengaged a moment, looking his way a moment, he would be on her,
saying, as he had said last night, "You find us much changed." Last
night he had got up and stopped before her, and said that. Dumb and
staring though they had all sat, the six children whom they used to
call after the Kings and Queens of England--the Red, the Fair, the
Wicked, the Ruthless--she felt how they raged under it. Kind old Mrs
Beckwith said something sensible. But it was a house full of unrelated
passions--she had felt that all the evening. And on top of this chaos
Mr Ramsay got up, pressed her hand, and said: "You will find us much
changed" and none of them had moved or had spoken; but had sat there as
if they were forced to let him say it. Only James (certainly the
To the Lighthouse |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Bickerstaff-Partridge Papers by Jonathan Swift: to find my gentleman mounted on a table with a two-foot rule in
his hand, measuring my walls, and taking the dimensions of the
room. Pray sir, says I, not to interrupt you, have you any
business with me? Only, sir, replies he, order the girl to bring
me a better light, for this is but a very dim one. Sir, says I,
my name is Partridge: Oh! the Doctor's brother, belike, cries he;
the stair-case, I believe, and these two apartments hung in close
mourning, will be sufficient, and only a strip of bays round the
other rooms. The Doctor must needs die rich, he had great
dealings in his way for many years; if he had no family coat, you
had as good use the escutcheons of the company, they are as
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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 Tom Grogan by F. Hopkinson Smith: I goes to the fort; an' I up an' says to Duffy, 'I can't wait for
the quartermaster. When's that coal a-comin'?' An' he says, 'In
a couple of weeks.' An' I turned onto him and says: 'Ye're a
pretty loafer to take the bread out of Tom Grogan's children's
mouths! An' ye want Dan McGaw to do the haulin', do ye? An' the
quality of the coal'll be all right if he gits it! An' there's
sure to be twenty-five dollars for ye, won't there? If I hear a
word more out of ye I'll see Colonel Howard sure, an' hand him
this letter.' An' Duffy turned white as a load of lime, and says,
'Don't do it, for God's sake! It'll cost me m' place.' While I
was a-talkin' I see a chunker-boat with the very coal on it round
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