| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Road to Oz by L. Frank Baum: "Please, miss," said the shaggy man, "can you tell me the road
to Butterfield?"
Dorothy looked him over. Yes, he was shaggy, all right, but there was
a twinkle in his eye that seemed pleasant.
"Oh yes," she replied; "I can tell you. But it isn't this road at all."
"No?"
"You cross the ten-acre lot, follow the lane to the highway, go north
to the five branches, and take--let me see--"
"To be sure, miss; see as far as Butterfield, if you like," said the
shaggy man.
"You take the branch next the willow stump, I b'lieve; or else the
The Road to Oz |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Egmont by Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe: ever severed by tyranny from the trunk.
Silva. You err! The righteous judges who have condemned you will not
conceal their sentence from the light of day.
Egmont. Then does their audacity exceed all imagination and belief. Silva
(takes the sentence from an attendant, unfolds it, and reads). "In the King's
name, and invested by his Majesty with authority to judge all his subjects
of whatever rank, not excepting the knights of the Golden Fleece, we
declare---"
Egmont. Can the king transfer that authority?
Silva. "We declare, after a strict and legal investigation, thee, Henry,
Count Egmont, Prince of Gaure, guilty of high treason, and pronounce thy
Egmont |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Garden Party by Katherine Mansfield: So we three were left. But really it wasn't my fault. Hennie looked
crushed to the earth, too. When the car was there she wrapped her dark
coat round her--to escape contamination. Even her little feet looked as
though they scorned to carry her down the steps to us.
"I am so awfully sorry," I murmured as the car started.
"Oh, I don't mind," said she. "I don't want to look twenty-one. Who
would--if they were seventeen! It's"--and she gave a faint shudder--"the
stupidity I loathe, and being stared at by old fat men. Beasts!"
Hennie gave her a quick look and then peered out of the window.
We drew up before an immense palace of pink-and-white marble with orange-
trees outside the doors in gold-and-black tubs.
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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 Maitre Cornelius by Honore de Balzac: everywhere, and now meditating ameliorations in his kingdom of all
kinds, he saw time slipping past him rapidly with no further troubles
than those of old age. Deceived by every one, even by the minions
about him, experience had intensified his natural distrust. The desire
to live became in him the egotism of a king who has incarnated himself
in his people; he wished to prolong his life in order to carry out his
vast designs.
All that the common-sense of publicists and the genius of revolutions
has since introduced of change in the character of monarchy, Louis XI.
had thought of and devised. Unity of taxation, equality of subjects
before the law (the prince being then the law) were the objects of his
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