| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Tin Woodman of Oz by L. Frank Baum: My idea in going there was to marry Nimmie Amee, but
however much the Munchkin girl may have loved a Tin
Woodman, I cannot reasonably expect her to marry a Tin
Owl."
"There is some truth in that, my friend," remarked
the Brown Bear. "And to think that I, who was
considered the handsomest Scarecrow in the world, am
now condemned to be a scrubby, no-account beast, whose
only redeeming feature is that he is stuffed with
straw!"
"Consider my case, please," said Woot. "The cruel
The Tin Woodman of Oz |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Astoria by Washington Irving: treated it with scorn, and asked more than double. His comrades
all took their cue from him, and not an otter-skin was to be had
at a reasonable rate.
The old fellow, however, overshot his mark, and mistook the
character of the man he was treating with. Thorn was a plain,
straightforward sailor, who never had two minds nor two prices in
his dealings, was deficient in patience and pliancy, and totally
wanting in the chicanery of traffic. He had a vast deal of stern
but honest pride in his nature, and, moreover, held the whole
savage race in sovereign contempt. Abandoning all further
attempts, therefore, to bargain with his shuffling customers, he
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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 Life on the Mississippi by Mark Twain: that one hand was sometimes out of doors,--here, never.
This is an important fact in geography.'
If the loafers determined the character of a country, it would
be still more important, of course.
'Heretofore, all along, the station-loafer has been often observed to scratch
one shin with the other foot; here, these remains of activity are wanting.
This has an ominous look.'
By and by, we entered the tobacco-chewing region.
Fifty years ago, the tobacco-chewing region covered the Union.
It is greatly restricted now.
Next, boots began to appear. Not in strong force, however.
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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 New Machiavelli by H. G. Wells: worked into the night. She carried a knack of laborious
thoroughness into the blind alleys and inessentials of her subject.
It didn't need the badness of the food for which Bennett Hall is
celebrated and the remarkable dietary of nocturnal cocoa, cakes and
soft biscuits with which the girls have supplemented it, to ensure
her collapse. Her mother brought her home, fretting and distressed,
and then finding her hopelessly unhappy at home, took her and her
half-brother, a rather ailing youngster of ten who died three years
later, for a journey to Italy.
Italy did much to assuage Margaret's chagrin. I think all three of
them had a very good time there. At home Mr. Seddon, her step-
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