| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde: JACK. That is nonsense. If I marry a charming girl like
Gwendolen, and she is the only girl I ever saw in my life that I
would marry, I certainly won't want to know Bunbury.
ALGERNON. Then your wife will. You don't seem to realise, that in
married life three is company and two is none.
JACK. [Sententiously.] That, my dear young friend, is the theory
that the corrupt French Drama has been propounding for the last
fifty years.
ALGERNON. Yes; and that the happy English home has proved in half
the time.
JACK. For heaven's sake, don't try to be cynical. It's perfectly
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Ozma of Oz by L. Frank Baum: rescue the private who was riding upon the iron giant's arm, high in
the air.
The Scarecrow lay flat upon the ground and called to the man to jump
down upon his body, which was soft because it was stuffed with straw.
This the private managed to do, waiting until a time when he was
nearest the ground and then letting himself drop upon the Scarecrow.
He accomplished the feat without breaking any bones, and the Scarecrow
declared he was not injured in the least.
Therefore, the Tin Woodman having by this time fitted new ears to the
Sawhorse, the entire party proceeded upon its way, leaving the giant
to pound the path behind them.
Ozma of Oz |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Moon-Face and Other Stories by Jack London: So unexpected and so quick was it, that the man was involved in the fall.
There had been no time for him to throw himself to the path. He was falling
ere he knew it, and he did the only thing possible--slipped the stirrups and
threw his body into the air, to the side, and at the same time down. It was
twelve feet to the rocks below. He maintained an upright position, his head up
and his eyes fixed on the horse above him and falling upon him.
Chris struck like a cat, on his feet, on the instant making a leap to the
side. The next instant Ban crashed down beside him. The animal struggled
little, but sounded the terrible cry that horses sometimes sound when they
have received mortal hurt. He had struck almost squarely on his back, and in
that position he remained, his head twisted partly under, his hind legs
|
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 A Journal of the Plague Year by Daniel Defoe: and have been thereby instrumental involuntarily to infect others
who have been ignorant and unwary.
This is one of the reasons why I believed then, and do believe still,
that the shutting up houses thus by force, and restraining, or rather
imprisoning, people in their own houses, as I said above, was of little
or no service in the whole. Nay, I am of opinion it was rather hurtful,
having forced those desperate people to wander abroad with the
plague upon them, who would otherwise have died quietly in their beds.
I remember one citizen who, having thus broken out of his house in
Aldersgate Street or thereabout, went along the road to Islington; he
attempted to have gone in at the Angel Inn, and after that the White
A Journal of the Plague Year |
