| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Tom Sawyer, Detective by Mark Twain: and four little bits of moles around it, when he was naked,
and he said it minded him of Jubiter and his moons; and the
children thought it was funny, and so they got to calling
him Jubiter, and he's Jubiter yet. He's tall, and lazy,
and sly, and sneaky, and ruther cowardly, too, but kind
of good-natured, and wears long brown hair and no beard,
and hasn't got a cent, and Brace boards him for nothing,
and gives him his old clothes to wear, and despises him.
Jubiter is a twin."
"What's t'other twin like?"
"Just exactly like Jubiter--so they say; used to was,
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Sanitary and Social Lectures by Charles Kingsley: the world to come. I do not mean to judge. Other and quite
unselfish motives may be, and doubtless often are, mixed up with
that selfish one: womanly pity and tenderness; love for, and
desire to imitate, a certain Incarnate ideal of self-sacrifice,
who is at once human and divine. But that motive of saving the
soul, which is too often openly proposed and proffered, is utterly
unheroic. The desire to escape pains and penalties hereafter by
pains and penalties here; the balance of present loss against
future gain--what is this but selfishness extended out of this
world into eternity? "Not worldliness," indeed, as a satirist
once said with bitter truth, "but other-worldliness."
|
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum: iron invisible to human eyes. So that when Dorothy walked across the floor
she stumbled over the bar, not being able to see it, and fell at full length.
She was not much hurt, but in her fall one of the Silver Shoes came off; and
before she could reach it, the Witch had snatched it away and put it on her
own skinny foot.
The wicked woman was greatly pleased with the success of her trick,
for as long as she had one of the shoes she owned half the power of
their charm, and Dorothy could not use it against her, even had she
known how to do so.
The little girl, seeing she had lost one of her pretty shoes,
grew angry, and said to the Witch, "Give me back my shoe!"
The Wizard of Oz |
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 What is Man? by Mark Twain: Y.M. Very well, have it so, if you will. But it could be
that he argued that if he saved a hundred souls in New York--
O.M. The sacrifice of the FAMILY would be justified by that
great profit upon the--the--what shall we call it?
Y.M. Investment?
O.M. Hardly. How would SPECULATION do? How would GAMBLE
do? Not a solitary soul-capture was sure. He played for a
possible thirty-three-hundred-per-cent profit. It was GAMBLING--
with his family for "chips." However let us see how the game
came out. Maybe we can get on the track of the secret original
impulse, the REAL impulse, that moved him to so nobly self-
What is Man? |
