| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum: my people will wait upon you and obey your slightest wish. There is
only one thing I ask in return for my help--such as it is. You must
keep my secret and tell no one I am a humbug."
They agreed to say nothing of what they had learned, and went
back to their rooms in high spirits. Even Dorothy had hope that
"The Great and Terrible Humbug," as she called him, would find a
way to send her back to Kansas, and if he did she was willing to
forgive him everything.
16. The Magic Art of the Great Humbug
Next morning the Scarecrow said to his friends:
"Congratulate me. I am going to Oz to get my brains at last.
The Wizard of Oz |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Secret Sharer by Joseph Conrad: and untried as yet by a position of the fullest responsibility,
I was willing to take the adequacy of the others for granted.
They had simply to be equal to their tasks; but I wondered
how far I should turn out faithful to that ideal conception
of one's own personality every man sets up for himself secretly.
Meantime the chief mate, with an almost visible effect of collaboration
on the part of his round eyes and frightful whiskers, was trying to evolve
a theory of the anchored ship. His dominant trait was to take all things
into earnest consideration. He was of a painstaking turn of mind.
As he used to say, he "liked to account to himself" for practically
everything that came in his way, down to a miserable scorpion
The Secret Sharer |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Lock and Key Library by Julian Hawthorne, Ed.: either all the men's faces must have been muffled up, or at least
he remembered nothing distinctly but one fierce pair of eyes
glaring upon him. Then, before he could look round, came a man
from behind and threw a sack over his head, which was drawn tight
about his waist, so as to confine his arms, as well as to impede
his hearing in part, and his voice altogether. He was then pushed
into a room; but previously he had heard a rush upstairs, and words
like those of a person exulting, and then a door closed. Once it
opened, and he could distinguish the words, in one voice, "And for
THAT!" to which another voice replied, in tones that made his heart
quake, "Aye, for THAT, sir." And then the same voice went on
|
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 End of the Tether by Joseph Conrad: to close her eyes himself. She went away from under
the ensign like a sailor's wife, a sailor herself at heart.
He had read the service over her, out of her own prayer-
book, without a break in his voice. When he raised his
eyes he could see old Swinburne facing him with his cap
pressed to his breast, and his rugged, weather-beaten,
impassive face streaming with drops of water like a
lump of chipped red granite in a shower. It was all
very well for that old sea-dog to cry. He had to read
on to the end; but after the splash he did not remember
much of what happened for the next few days. An
End of the Tether |
