| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Chinese Boy and Girl by Isaac Taylor Headland: simply side issues.
The first illustration the child constructed for me, for I
desired him to teach me how it was done, was a dragon horse, and
when I asked him to explain it, he said that it represented the
animal seen by Fu Hsi, the original ancestor of the Chinese
people, emerging from the Meng river, bearing upon its back a map
on which were fifty-five spots, representing the male and female
principles of nature, and which the sage used to construct what
are called the eight diagrams.
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Europeans by Henry James: and Felix Young, without overshoes, went also, holding an umbrella
over Gertrude. It is to be feared that, in the whole observance,
this was the privilege he most highly valued. The Baroness remained
at home; she was in neither a cheerful nor a devotional mood.
She had, however, never been, during her residence in the United
States, what is called a regular attendant at divine service;
and on this particular Sunday morning of which I began with speaking
she stood at the window of her little drawing-room, watching
the long arm of a rose-tree that was attached to her piazza,
but a portion of which had disengaged itself, sway to and fro,
shake and gesticulate, against the dusky drizzle of the sky.
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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 Chance by Joseph Conrad: only security. I don't know how to explain it clearly. Look! Even
a small child lives, plays and suffers in terms of its conception of
its own existence. Imagine, if you can, a fact coming in suddenly
with a force capable of shattering that very conception itself. It
was only because of the girl being still so much of a child that she
escaped mental destruction; that, in other words she got over it.
Could one conceive of her more mature, while still as ignorant as
she was, one must conclude that she would have become an idiot on
the spot--long before the end of that experience. Luckily, people,
whether mature or not mature (and who really is ever mature?) are
for the most part quite incapable of understanding what is happening
Chance |
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 Glinda of Oz by L. Frank Baum: could make this tent appear, with our dinners and beds
all ready for us."
Ozma smiled.
"Yes, it is indeed wonderful," she agreed. "Not all
fairies know that sort of magic, but some fairies can
do magic that fills me with astonishment. I think that
is what makes us modest and unassuming -- the fact that
our magic arts are divided, some being given each of
us. I'm glad I don't know everything, Dorothy, and that
there still are things in both nature and in wit for me
to marvel at."
Glinda of Oz |
