| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Emerald City of Oz by L. Frank Baum: health in my life," replied the old gentleman. "If anything ailed me,
I'd willingly acknowledge the corn."
"Johnny's a trifle stale," said Mr. Bunn, as they went away; "but he's
a good mixer and never gets cross-grained. I will now take you to
call upon some of my own relatives." They visited the Sugar Bunns,
the Currant Bunns and the Spanish Bunns, the latter having a decidedly
foreign appearance. Then they saw the French Rolls, who were very
polite to them, and made a brief call upon the Parker H. Rolls, who
seemed a bit proud and overbearing.
"But they're not as stuck up as the Frosted Jumbles," declared Mr.
Bunn, "who are people I really can't abide. I don't like to be
The Emerald City of Oz |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Westward Ho! by Charles Kingsley: "Portugal"! Eagerly he looked up the glen, and listened; but he
heard nothing but the sweeping of the wind across the downs five
hundred feet above, and the sough of the waterfall upon the rocks
below; he saw nothing but the vast black sheets of oak-wood sloping
up to the narrow blue sky above, and the broad bright hunter's
moon, and the woodcocks, which, chuckling to each other, hawked to
and fro, like swallows, between the tree-tops and the sky.
At last he heard a rustle of the fallen leaves; he shrank closer
and closer into the darkness of the bank. Then swift light steps--
not down the path, from above, but upward, from below; his heart
beat quick and loud. And in another half-minute a man came in
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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 Moral Emblems by Robert Louis Stevenson: Hung in the article of declension.
So forty, fifty, sixty passed;
Until, when seventy came at last,
The occupant of number three
Called friends to hold a jubilee.
Wild was the night; the charging rack
Had forced the moon upon her back;
The wind piped up a naval ditty;
And the lamps winked through all the city.
Before that house, where lights were shining,
Corpulent feeders, grossly dining,
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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 Democracy In America, Volume 1 by Alexis de Toqueville: expression of opinion, any more than over the conduct of
business. These are circumstances which do not depend on human
foresight; but it is owing to the laws of the Union that there
are no licenses to be granted to printers, no securities demanded
from editors as in France, and no stamp duty as in France and
formerly in England. The consequence of this is that nothing is
easier than to set up a newspaper, and a small number of readers
suffices to defray the expenses of the editor.
The number of periodical and occasional publications which
appears in the United States actually surpasses belief. The most
enlightened Americans attribute the subordinate influence of the
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