| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Peter Pan by James M. Barrie: two adventures rather than just one. A shorter adventure, and
quite as exciting, was Tinker Bell's attempt, with the help of
some street fairies, to have the sleeping Wendy conveyed on a
great floating leaf to the mainland. Fortunately the leaf gave
way and Wendy woke, thinking it was bath-time, and swam back. Or
again, we might choose Peter's defiance of the lions, when he
drew a circle round him on the ground with an arrow and dared
them to cross it; and though he waited for hours, with the other
boys and Wendy looking on breathlessly from trees, not one of
them dared to accept his challenge.
Which of these adventures shall we choose? The best way will
Peter Pan |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Moon-Face and Other Stories by Jack London: pans, while the ends came where no colors showed in the pan. And as he
ascended the hillside the lines grew perceptibly shorter. The regularity with
which their length diminished served to indicate that somewhere up the slope
the last line would be so short as to have scarcely length at all, and that
beyond could come only a point. The design was growing into an inverted "V."
The converging sides of this "V" marked the boundaries of the gold-bearing
dirt.
The apex of the "V" was evidently the man's goal. Often he ran his eye along
the converging sides and on up the hill, trying to divine the apex, the point
where the gold-bearing dirt must cease. Here resided "Mr. Pocket"--for so the
man familiarly addressed the imaginary point above him on the slope, crying
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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 Kwaidan by Lafcadio Hearn: necessary Evils,-- the males. They appear only at a particular season, as I
have already observed; and their lives are very short. Some cannot even
boast of noble descent, though destined to royal wedlock; for they are not
royal offspring, but virgin-born,-- parthenogenetic children,-- and, for
that reason especially, inferior beings, the chance results of some
mysterious atavism. But of any sort of males the commonwealth tolerates but
few,-- barely enough to serve as husbands for the Mothers-Elect, and these
few perish almost as soon as their duty has been done. The meaning of
Nature's law, in this extraordinary world, is identical with Ruskin's
teaching that life without effort is crime; and since the males are useless
as workers or fighters, their existence is of only momentary importance.
Kwaidan |
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 Extracts From Adam's Diary by Mark Twain: any longer publicly. The new creature says it is all woods and
rocks and scenery, and therefore has no resemblance to a garden.
Says it looks like a park, and does not look like anything but a
park. Consequently, without consulting me, it has been new-named--
NIAGARA FALLS PARK. This is sufficiently high-handed, it seems to
me. And already there is a sign up:
KEEP OFF
THE GRASS
My life is not as happy as it was.
Saturday
The new creature eats too much fruit. We are going to run short,
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