| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Emerald City of Oz by L. Frank Baum: judgment I will carry him back and dump him into his pool, where I
hope he will be more modest in the future."
"But we cannot tell him that," said Dorothy, gravely, "because it
would not be true."
"What!" exclaimed the zebra, in astonishment; "do I hear you aright?"
"The soft-shell crab is correct," declared the Wizard. "There is
considerably more water than there is land in the world."
"Impossible!" protested the zebra. "Why, I can run for days upon the
land, and find but little water."
"Did you ever see an ocean?" asked Dorothy.
"Never," admitted the zebra. "There is no such thing as an ocean in
The Emerald City of Oz |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Hidden Masterpiece by Honore de Balzac: more skilful to double and escape, than the Proteus of fable; it is
only at the cost of struggle that we compel it to come forth in its
true aspects. You young men are content with the first glimpse you get
of it; or, at any rate, with the second or the third. This is not the
spirit of the great warriors of art,--invincible powers, not misled by
will-o'-the-wisps, but advancing always until they force Nature to lie
bare in her divine integrity. That was Raphael's method," said the old
man, lifting his velvet cap in homage to the sovereign of art; "his
superiority came from the inward essence which seems to break from the
inner to the outer of his figures. Form with him was what it is with
us,--a medium by which to communicate ideas, sensations, feelings; in
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