| 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: Illustrious Majesty and offer you my humble services."
"Very good!" answered the Tin Woodman in his
accustomed cheerful manner. "Tell me who you are, and
whence you come."
"I am known as Woot the Wanderer," answered the boy,
"and I have come, through many travels and by
roundabout ways, from my former home in a far corner of
the Gillikin Country of Oz."
"To wander from one's home," remarked the Scarecrow,
"is to encounter dangers and hardships, especially if
one is made of meat and bone. Had you no friends in
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 The Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu by Sax Rohmer: Then there are my fungi and my tiny allies, the bacilli.
I have a collection in my laboratory quite unique. Have you ever
visited Molokai, the leper island, Doctor? No? But Mr. Nayland
Smith will be familiar with the asylum at Rangoon!
And we must not forget my black spiders, with their diamond eyes--
my spiders, that sit in the dark and watch--then leap!"
He raised his lean hands, so that the sleeve of the robe fell back
to the elbow, and the ape dropped, chattering, to the floor and ran
from the cellar.
"O God of Cathay!" he cried, "by what death shall these die--
these miserable ones who would bind thine Empire, which is boundless!"
The Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians by Martin Luther: evil when there is no law to force us to do so?"
This attitude is common enough. People talk about Christian liberty and
then go and cater to the desires of covetousness, pleasure, pride, envy, and
other vices. Nobody wants to fulfill his duties. Nobody wants to help out a
brother in distress. This sort of thing makes me so impatient at times that I
wish the swine who trampled precious pearls under foot were back once
again under the tyranny of the Pope. You cannot wake up the people of
Gomorrah with the gospel of peace.
Even we creatures of the world do not perform our duties as zealously in
the light of the Gospel as we did before in the darkness of ignorance,
because the surer we are of the liberty purchased for us by Christ, the more
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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 Sarrasine by Honore de Balzac: long time Sarrasine's impetuous temperament and unruly genius.
Bouchardon, foreseeing how violently the passions would some day rage
in that youthful heart, as highly tempered perhaps as Michelangelo's,
smothered its vehemence with constant toil. He succeeded in
restraining within reasonable bounds Sarrasine's extraordinary
impetuosity, by forbidding him to work, by proposing diversions when
he saw that he was on the point of plunging into dissipation. But with
that passionate nature, gentleness was always the most powerful of all
weapons, and the master did not acquire great influence over his pupil
until he had aroused his gratitude by fatherly kindness.
"At the age of twenty-two Sarrasine was forcibly removed from the
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