| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Venus and Adonis by William Shakespeare: Measure my strangeness with my unripe years: 524
Before I know myself, seek not to know me;
No fisher but the ungrown fry forbears:
The mellow plum doth fall, the green sticks fast,
Or being early pluck'd is sour to taste. 528
'Look! the world's comforter, with weary gait
His day's hot task hath ended in the west;
The owl, night's herald, shrieks, 'tis very late;
The sheep are gone to fold, birds to their nest, 532
And coal-black clouds that shadow heaven's light
Do summon us to part, and bid good night.
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Inaugural Address by John F. Kennedy: have far outpaced the instruments of peace, we renew our pledge
of support. . .to prevent it from becoming merely a forum for
invective. . .to strengthen its shield of the new and the weak. . .
and to enlarge the area in which its writ may run.
Finally, to those nations who would make themselves our adversaries,
we offer not a pledge but a request: that both sides begin anew
the quest for peace; before the dark powers of destruction unleashed
by science engulf all humanity in planned or accidental self-destruction.
We dare not tempt them with weakness. For only when our arms are sufficient
beyond doubt can we be certain beyond doubt that they will never be employed.
But neither can two great and powerful groups of nations take comfort from
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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 Across The Plains by Robert Louis Stevenson: into a dell of shelter, where you might lie and tell yourself you
were a little warm, and hear (near at hand) the whin-pods bursting
in the afternoon sun, and (farther off) the rumour of the turbulent
sea. As for Wick itself, it is one of the meanest of man's towns,
and situate certainly on the baldest of God's bays. It lives for
herring, and a strange sight it is to see (of an afternoon) the
heights of Pulteney blackened by seaward-looking fishers, as when a
city crowds to a review - or, as when bees have swarmed, the ground
is horrible with lumps and clusters; and a strange sight, and a
beautiful, to see the fleet put silently out against a rising moon,
the sea-line rough as a wood with sails, and ever and again and one
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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 Magic of Oz by L. Frank Baum: Kiki knew he was not to be depended on; but the Nome could plan and
plot, which the Hyup boy was not wise enough to do, and so, when he
looked down through the branches of a tree and saw a Goose waddling
along below and heard it cry out, "Kiki Aru! Quack--quack! Kiki
Aru!" the boy answered in a low voice, "Here I am," and swung himself
down to the lowest limb of the tree.
The Goose looked up and saw him.
"You've bungled things in a dreadful way!" exclaimed the Goose.
"Why did you do it?"
"Because I wanted to," answered Kiki. "You acted as if I was your
slave, and I wanted to show these forest people that I am more
The Magic of Oz |
