| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Hamlet by William Shakespeare: Fixt on the Somnet of the highest Mount.
To whose huge Spoakes, ten thousand lesser things
Are mortiz'd and adioyn'd: which when it falles,
Each small annexment, pettie consequence
Attends the boystrous Ruine. Neuer alone
Did the King sighe, but with a generall grone
King. Arme you, I pray you to this speedie Voyage;
For we will Fetters put vpon this feare,
Which now goes too free-footed
Both. We will haste vs.
Exeunt. Gent.
Hamlet |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Tik-Tok of Oz by L. Frank Baum: now noticed that something was wrong and with one
accord they halted the column and looked back
along the path.
There was Tik-Tok, still bounding from one
rubber rock to another, each time rising a less
distance from the ground. And there was General
Apple, bounding away in another direction, his
three-cornered hat jammed over his eyes and his
long sword thumping him upon the arms and head as
it swung this way and that. And there, also,
appeared General Cone, who had struck a rubber
Tik-Tok of Oz |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen: This indulgence, though not more than Catherine had
hoped for, completed her conviction of being favoured
beyond every other human creature, in friends and fortune,
circumstance and chance. Everything seemed to cooperate
for her advantage. By the kindness of her first friends,
the Allens, she had been introduced into scenes where
pleasures of every kind had met her. Her feelings,
her preferences, had each known the happiness of a return.
Wherever she felt attachment, she had been able to
create it. The affection of Isabella was to be secured
to her in a sister. The Tilneys, they, by whom,
Northanger Abbey |
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 Road to Oz by L. Frank Baum: he had bid good-bye to those present and thanked the Princess
for her hospitality.
The Wizard then announced the last act of all, which was considered
really wonderful. He had invented a machine to blow huge soap-bubbles,
as big as balloons, and this machine was hidden under the platform so
that only the rim of the big clay pipe to produce the bubbles showed
above the flooring. The tank of soapsuds, and the air-pumps to inflate
the bubbles, were out of sight beneath, so that when the bubbles began
to grow upon the floor of the platform it really seemed like magic to the
people of Oz, who knew nothing about even the common soap-bubbles that
our children blow with a penny clay pipe and a basin of soap-and-water.
The Road to Oz |
