| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Ozma of Oz by L. Frank Baum: "I--I find I've forgotten the brush for my whiskers," said a general,
trembling with fear. "S-s-so we are g-going back after it!"
"That is impossible," replied the Tin Woodman. "For the giant with
the hammer would kill you all if you tried to pass him."
"Oh! I'd forgotten the giant," said the general, turning pale.
"You seem to forget a good many things," remarked the Tin Woodman.
"I hope you won't forget that you are brave men."
"Never!" cried the general, slapping his gold-embroidered chest.
"Never!" cried all the other officers, indignantly slapping their chests.
"For my part," said the private, meekly, "I must obey my officers; so
when I am told to run, I run; and when I am told to fight, I fight."
Ozma 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 What is Man? by Mark Twain: were required of me, and in every instance the thing required was
against nature. That is to say, that whatever the needed thing
might be, my nature, habit, and breeding moved me to attempt it
in one way, while some immutable and unsuspected law of physics
required that it be done in just the other way. I perceived by
this how radically and grotesquely wrong had been the life-long
education of my body and members. They were steeped in
ignorance; they knew nothing--nothing which it could profit them
to know. For instance, if I found myself falling to the right, I
put the tiller hard down the other way, by a quite natural
impulse, and so violated a law, and kept on going down. The law
What is Man? |
