| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Patchwork Girl of Oz by L. Frank Baum: is the best thing in life. There was once a
woodchopper, a friend of mine, who was made all of
tin, and I used to laugh every time I saw him."
"A tin woodchopper?" said Ojo. "That is
strange."
"My friend wasn't always tin," said the man,
"but he was careless with his axe, and used to
chop himself very badly. Whenever he lost an arm
or a leg he had it replaced with tin; so after a
while he was all tin."
"And could he chop wood then?" asked the boy.
The Patchwork Girl of Oz |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from War and the Future by H. G. Wells: rather over nine thousand workpeople."
He showed me a little row of specimens. "These we make for
Italy. These go to Russia. These are the Rumanian pattern."
Thence to the first stage, the chopping up of the iron bars, the
furnace, the punching out of the first shape of the shell; all
this is men's work. I had seen this sort of thing before in
peace ironworks, but I saw it again with the same astonishment,
the absolute precision of movement on the part of the half-naked
sweating men, the calculated efficiency of each worker, the
apparent heedlessness, the real certitude, with which the blazing
hot cylinder is put here, dropped there, rolls to its next
|
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Mosses From An Old Manse by Nathaniel Hawthorne: been!"
And then came a second thwack, aimed at the driver's other ear;
but which missed it, and hit him on the nose, causing a terrible
effusion of blood. Now, who or what fearful apparition was
inflicting this punishment on the poor fellow remained an
impenetrable mystery to me. The blows were given by a person of
grisly aspect, with a head almost bald, and sunken cheeks,
apparently of the feminine gender, though hardly to be classed in
the gentler sex. There being no teeth to modulate the voice, it
had a mumbled fierceness, not passionate, but stern, which
absolutely made me quiver like calf's-foot jelly. Who could the
Mosses From An Old Manse |
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 Barnaby Rudge by Charles Dickens: was for an instant still. The whole great mass were mad.
A shout! Another! Another yet, though few knew why, or what it
meant. But those around the gate had seen it slowly yield, and
drop from its topmost hinge. It hung on that side by but one, but
it was upright still, because of the bar, and its having sunk, of
its own weight, into the heap of ashes at its foot. There was now
a gap at the top of the doorway, through which could be descried a
gloomy passage, cavernous and dark. Pile up the fire!
It burnt fiercely. The door was red-hot, and the gap wider. They
vainly tried to shield their faces with their hands, and standing
as if in readiness for a spring, watched the place. Dark figures,
Barnaby Rudge |
