| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Tin Woodman of Oz by L. Frank Baum: required, and their journey now became tedious, because
on climbing each hill, they found before them nothing
in the valley below it except grass, or weeds or
stones.
Up and down they went for hours, with nothing to
relieve the monotony of the landscape, until finally,
when they had topped a higher hill than usual, they
discovered a cup-shaped valley before them in the
center of which stood an enormous castle, built of
purple stone. The castle was high and broad and
long, but had no turrets and towers. So far as they
The Tin Woodman of Oz |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Bucolics by Virgil: The mariners cried on Hylas till the shore
"Then Re-echoed "Hylas, Hylas! soothed
Pasiphae with the love of her white bull-
Happy if cattle-kind had never been!-
O ill-starred maid, what frenzy caught thy soul
The daughters too of Proetus filled the fields
With their feigned lowings, yet no one of them
Of such unhallowed union e'er was fain
As with a beast to mate, though many a time
On her smooth forehead she had sought for horns,
And for her neck had feared the galling plough.
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