| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Magic of Oz by L. Frank Baum: Kiki kept running to the edge of the forest and back to the hollow
tree again until he had whispered the Magic Word six times and six
monkeys had been changed to six great Giants. Then the Wizard decided
he would make an experiment and use the Magic Word himself. So, while
Kiki was running back to the Nome, the Fox stuck his head out of the
hollow and said softly: "I want that creature who is running to become
a hickory-nut--Pyrzqxgl!"
Instantly the Li-Mon-Eag form of Kiki Aru the Hyup disappeared and a
small hickory-nut rolled upon the ground a moment and then lay still.
The Wizard was delighted, and leaped from the hollow just as Ruggedo
looked around to see what had become of Kiki. The Nome saw the Fox
The Magic of Oz |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Almayer's Folly by Joseph Conrad: In that clear space Almayer worked at his table not far from a
little green painted door, by which always stood a Malay in a red
sash and turban, and whose hand, holding a small string dangling
from above, moved up and down with the regularity of a machine.
The string worked a punkah on the other side of the green door,
where the so-called private office was, and where old Hudig--the
Master--sat enthroned, holding noisy receptions. Sometimes the
little door would fly open disclosing to the outer world, through
the bluish haze of tobacco smoke, a long table loaded with
bottles of various shapes and tall water-pitchers, rattan
easy-chairs occupied by noisy men in sprawling attitudes, while
Almayer's Folly |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Polity of Athenians and Lacedaemonians by Xenophon: spirit of the democracy with Spartan exclusiveness; "Our city is
thrown open to the world, and we never expel a foreigner or
prevent him from seeing or learning anything of which the secret,
if revealed to an enemy, might profit him."--Jowett, i. 118.
[4] Lit. "harmosts"; and for the taste of living abroad, see what is
said of Dercylidas, "Hell." IV. iii. 2. The harmosts were not
removed till just before Leuctra (371 B.C.), "Hell." VI. iv. 1,
and after, see Paus. VIII. lii. 4; IX. lxiv.
[5] See Plut. "Lycurg." 30 (Clough, i. 124).
[6] This passage would seem to fix the date of the chapter xiv. as
about the time of the Athenian confederacy of 378 B.C.; "Hell." V.
|
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 Babbitt by Sinclair Lewis: implied in being chaffed, but he was suddenly touchy. He grunted, "Yuh, sure;
maybe I'll take you guys on as office boys!" He was impatient as the jest
elaborately rolled on to its denouement.
"Of course he may have been meeting a girl," they said, and "No, I think he
was waiting for his old roommate, Sir Jerusalem Doak."
He exploded, "Oh, spring it, spring it, you boneheads! What's the great joke?"
"Hurray! George is peeved!" snickered Sidney Finkelstein, while a grin went
round the table. Gunch revealed the shocking truth: He had seen Babbitt
coming out of a motion-picture theater--at noon!
They kept it up. With a hundred variations, a hundred guffaws, they said that
he had gone to the movies during business-hours. He didn't so much mind Gunch,
|
