| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Lost Princess of Oz by L. Frank Baum: quickly learn where she was.
Dorothy advanced to the place where the picture was usually protected
by thick satin curtains and pulled the draperies aside. Then she
stared in amazement, while her two friends uttered exclamations of
disappointment.
The Magic Picture was gone. Only a blank space on
the wall behind the curtains showed where it had formerly hung.
CHAPTER 2
THE TROUBLES OF GLINDA THE GOOD
That same morning there was great excitement in the castle of the
powerful Sorceress of Oz, Glinda the Good. This castle, situated in
The Lost Princess of Oz |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Master and Man by Leo Tolstoy: and Vasili Andreevich kept guiding it to the left.
Again something dark appeared in front of him. Again he
rejoiced, convinced that now it was certainly a village. But
once more it was the same boundary line overgrown with
wormwood, once more the same wormwood desperately tossed by
the wind and carrying unreasoning terror to his heart. But its
being the same wormwood was not all, for beside is* there was a
horse's track partly snowed over. Vasili Andreevich stopped,
stooped down and looked carefully. It was a horse-track only
partially covered with snow, and could be none but his own
horse's hoofprints. He had evidently gone round in a small
Master and Man |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Varieties of Religious Experience by William James: be solid; and on it and round it the ruddier additional beliefs
on which the different individuals make their venture might be
grafted, and flourish as richly as you please. I shall add my
own over-belief (which will be, I confess, of a somewhat pallid
kind, as befits a critical philosopher), and you will, I hope,
also add your over-beliefs, and we shall soon be in the varied
world of concrete religious constructions once more. For the
moment, let me dryly pursue the analytic part of the task.
Both thought and feeling are determinants of conduct, and the
same conduct may be determined either by feeling or by thought.
When we survey the whole field of religion, we find a great
|
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 Almayer's Folly by Joseph Conrad: folds of the red sarong gathered into a sash round his waist, and
played on the precious stones of the many rings on his dark
fingers. He straightened himself up quickly after the low bow,
putting his hand with a graceful ease on the hilt of his heavy
short sword ornamented with brilliantly dyed fringes of
horsehair. Nina, hesitating on the threshold, saw an erect lithe
figure of medium height with a breadth of shoulder suggesting
great power. Under the folds of a blue turban, whose fringed
ends hung gracefully over the left shoulder, was a face full of
determination and expressing a reckless good-humour, not devoid,
however, of some dignity. The squareness of lower jaw, the full
Almayer's Folly |
