| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Master Key by L. Frank Baum: day was well advanced. He stood up, rubbed the sleep from his eyes
and decided he would like a drink of water. From where he stood he
could see several little brooks following winding paths through the
forest, so he settled upon one that seemed farthest from the brushwood
villages, and turning his indicator in that direction soon floated
through the air to a sheltered spot upon the bank.
Kneeling down, he enjoyed a long, refreshing drink of the clear water,
but as he started to regain his feet a coil of rope was suddenly
thrown about him, pinning his arms to his sides and rendering him
absolutely helpless.
At the same time his ears were saluted with a wild chattering in an
The Master Key |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Egmont by Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe: while the rafters of the ceiling seemed to stifle and oppress me. Then I
would hurry forth as soon as possible, fling myself upon my horse with
deep-drawn breath, and away to the wide champaign, man's natural
element, where, exhaling from the earth, nature's richest treasures are
poured forth around us, while, from the wide heavens, the stars shed down
their blessings through the still air; where, like earth-born giants, we
spring aloft, invigorated by our Mother's touch; where our entire humanity
and our human desires throb in every vein; where the desire to press
forward, to vanquish, to snatch, to use his clenched fist, to possess, to
conquer, glows through the soul of the young hunter; where the warrior,
with rapid stride, assumes his inborn right to dominion over the world;
Egmont |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Around the World in 80 Days by Jules Verne: uncomfortable howdahs. Phileas Fogg paid the Indian with some banknotes
which he extracted from the famous carpet-bag, a proceeding that seemed
to deprive poor Passepartout of his vitals. Then he offered to carry
Sir Francis to Allahabad, which the brigadier gratefully accepted,
as one traveller the more would not be likely to fatigue the
gigantic beast. Provisions were purchased at Kholby, and,
while Sir Francis and Mr. Fogg took the howdahs on either side,
Passepartout got astride the saddle-cloth between them.
The Parsee perched himself on the elephant's neck, and at nine o'clock
they set out from the village, the animal marching off through the
dense forest of palms by the shortest cut.
Around the World in 80 Days |
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 Dark Lady of the Sonnets by George Bernard Shaw: Democracy, which was not a live political issue in Shakespear's time,
but of impartiality in judging classes, which is what one demands from
a great human poet, is not that he should flatter the poor and
denounce the rich, but that he should weigh them both in the same
balance. Now whoever will read Lear and Measure for Measure will find
stamped on his mind such an appalled sense of the danger of dressing
man in a little brief authority, such a merciless stripping of the
purple from the "poor, bare, forked animal" that calls itself a king
and fancies itself a god, that one wonders what was the real nature of
the mysterious restraint that kept "Eliza and our James" from teaching
Shakespear to be civil to crowned heads, just as one wonders why
|
