| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Dead Souls by Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol: lessons, and beat me, and set me to copy maxims into a book, he
himself stole land from his neighbours, and forced me to help him. I
have even known him to bring an unjust suit, and defraud the orphan
whose guardian he was! Consequently I know and feel that, though my
life has been different from his, I do not hate roguery as I ought to
hate it, and that my nature is coarse, and that in me there is no real
love for what is good, no real spark of that beautiful instinct for
well-doing which becomes a second nature, a settled habit. Also, never
do I yearn to strive for what is right as I yearn to acquire property.
This is no more than the truth. What else could I do but confess it?"
The old man sighed.
Dead Souls |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from All's Well That Ends Well by William Shakespeare: I, after him, do after him wish too,
Since I nor wax nor honey can bring home,
I quickly were dissolved from my hive,
To give some labourers room.
SECOND LORD.
You're lov'd, sir;
They that least lend it you shall lack you first.
KING.
I fill a place, I know't.--How long is't, Count,
Since the physician at your father's died?
He was much fam'd.
|
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Emerald City of Oz by L. Frank Baum: him wonderingly and say: "Look out!" But on he went.
No one can say that Guph was not brave, for he had determined to visit
those dangerous creatures the Phanfasms, who resided upon the very
top of the dread Mountain of Phantastico. The Phanfasms were Erbs,
and so dreaded by mortals and immortals alike that no one had been
near their mountain home for several thousand years. Yet General Guph
hoped to induce them to join in his proposed warfare against the good
and happy Oz people.
Guph knew very well that the Phanfasms would be almost as dangerous to
the Nomes as they would to the Ozites, but he thought himself so
clever that he believed he could manage these strange creatures and
The Emerald City of Oz |
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 Peter Pan by James M. Barrie: but by the time Peter recognised her she was very exhausted. She
had come to save him, to give him her nest, though there were
eggs in it. I rather wonder at the bird, for though he had been
nice to her, he had also sometimes tormented her. I can suppose
only that, like Mrs. Darling and the rest of them, she was melted
because he had all his first teeth.
She called out to him what she had come for, and he called out
to her what she was doing there; but of course neither of them
understood the other's language. In fanciful stories people can
talk to the birds freely, and I wish for the moment I could
pretend that this were such a story, and say that Peter replied
Peter Pan |
