| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood by Howard Pyle: and in that time there gathered around him many others like himself,
cast out from other folk for this cause and for that.
Some had shot deer in hungry wintertime, when they could get
no other food, and had been seen in the act by the foresters,
but had escaped, thus saving their ears; some had been turned
out of their inheritance, that their farms might be added
to the King's lands in Sherwood Forest; some had been despoiled
by a great baron or a rich abbot or a powerful esquire--
all, for one cause or another, had come to Sherwood to escape
wrong and oppression.
So, in all that year, fivescore or more good stout yeomen gathered
The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Maid Marian by Thomas Love Peacock: whom he again left there with a sufficient force to hold it in safe
keeping in the king's name, and proceeded to London to report the results
of his enterprise.
Now Henry our royal king was very wroth at the earl's evasion,
and swore by Saint Thomas-a-Becket (whom he had himself translated
into a saint by having him knocked on the head), that he would
give the castle and lands of Locksley to the man who should bring
in the earl. Hereupon ensued a process of thought in the mind
of the knight. The eyes of the fair huntress of Arlingford had
left a wound in his heart which only she who gave could heal.
He had seen that the baron was no longer very partial
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| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz by L. Frank Baum: "Your friends sound like a menagerie," remarked Zeb, uneasily.
"Couldn't you wish me in some safer place than Oz."
"Don't worry," replied the girl. "You'll just love the folks in Oz,
when you get acquainted. What time is it, Mr. Wizard?"
The little man looked at his watch--a big silver one that he carried
in his vest pocket.
"Half-past three," he said.
"Then we must wait for half an hour," she continued; "but it won't
take long, after that, to carry us all to the Emerald City."
They sat silently thinking for a time. Then Jim suddenly asked:
"Are there any horses in Oz?"
Dorothy and the Wizard in 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 The Purse by Honore de Balzac: every part of their home. If, here, the picture is too boldly
drawn, if you find it tedious in places, do not blame the
description, which is, indeed, part and parcel of my story; for
the appearance of the rooms inhabited by his two neighbors had a
great influence on the feelings and hopes of Hippolyte Schinner.
The house belonged to one of those proprietors in whom there is a
foregone and profound horror of repairs and decoration, one of
the men who regard their position as Paris house-owners as a
business. In the vast chain of moral species, these people hold a
middle place between the miser and the usurer. Optimists in their
own interests, they are all faithful to the Austrian status quo.
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