| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Rinkitink In Oz by L. Frank Baum: are strangers, and we their guests." Then he turned to
Kitticut and remarked: "You have no talking goats on
your island, I suppose."
"We have no goats at all," replied the King; "nor
have we any animals, of any sort, who are able to
talk."
"I wish my animal couldn't talk, either," said
Rinkitink, winking comically at Inga and then looking
toward the cage. "He is very cross at times, and
indulges in language that is not respectful. I thought,
at first, it would be fine to have a talking goat, with
Rinkitink In Oz |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Charmides by Plato: feruntur Epistolis). They are full of egotism, self-assertion,
affectation, faults which of all writers Plato was most careful to avoid,
and into which he was least likely to fall. They abound in obscurities,
irrelevancies, solecisms, pleonasms, inconsistencies, awkwardnesses of
construction, wrong uses of words. They also contain historical blunders,
such as the statement respecting Hipparinus and Nysaeus, the nephews of
Dion, who are said to 'have been well inclined to philosophy, and well able
to dispose the mind of their brother Dionysius in the same course,' at a
time when they could not have been more than six or seven years of age--
also foolish allusions, such as the comparison of the Athenian empire to
the empire of Darius, which show a spirit very different from that of
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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 Amy Foster by Joseph Conrad: People were saying that Amy Foster was begin-
ning to find out what sort of man she had married.
He looked upon the sea with indifferent, unseeing
eyes. His wife had snatched the child out of his
arms one day as he sat on the doorstep crooning to
it a song such as the mothers sing to babies in his
mountains. She seemed to think he was doing it
some harm. Women are funny. And she had ob-
jected to him praying aloud in the evening. Why?
He expected the boy to repeat the prayer aloud
after him by-and-by, as he used to do after his old
Amy Foster |
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 Roads of Destiny by O. Henry: to obey, for something clicked the gate latch and was coming down the
walk toward the house. Something that shuffled its feet and muttered
to itself as it came. It stopped in the current of light at the foot
of the steps and spake, in the universal whine of the gadding
mendicant.
"Kind sir, could you spare a poor, hungry man, out of luck, a little
to eat? And to sleep in the corner of a shed? For"--the thing
concluded, irrelevantly--"I can sleep now. There are no mountains to
dance reels in the night; and the copper kettles are all scoured
bright. The iron band is still round my ankle, and a link, if it is
your desire I should be chained."
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