| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Essays & Lectures by Oscar Wilde: work of such men as Rossetti and Burne-Jones by a far greater
splendour of colour, a far more intricate wonder of design than
English imaginative art has shown before. In Rossetti's poetry and
the poetry of Morris, Swinburne and Tennyson a perfect precision
and choice of language, a style flawless and fearless, a seeking
for all sweet and precious melodies and a sustaining consciousness
of the musical value of each word are opposed to that value which
is merely intellectual. In this respect they are one with the
romantic movement of France of which not the least characteristic
note was struck by Theophile Gautier's advice to the young poet to
read his dictionary every day, as being the only book worth a
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Tom Sawyer Abroad by Mark Twain: Instink tells him where the exact PLACE is for the brick to
be in, and so he reconnizes it by the place it's in, not
by the look of the brick. If it was knowledge, not
instink, he would know the brick again by the look of
it the next time he seen it -- which he didn't. So it
shows that for all the brag you hear about knowledge
being such a wonderful thing, instink is worth forty of
it for real unerringness. Jim says the same.
When we got back Jim dropped down and took us
in, and there was a young man there with a red skull-
cap and tassel on and a beautiful silk jacket and baggy
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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 Woman and Labour by Olive Schreiner: performance of this passive form of labour, and of her successful feeding
of her young from her own breast, and rearing it, depended, not merely the
welfare, but often the very existence, of her tribe or nation. Where, as
is the case among almost all barbarous peoples, the rate of infant
mortality is high; where the unceasing casualties resulting from war, the
chase, and acts of personal violence tend continually to reduce the number
of adult males; where, surgical knowledge being still in its infancy, most
wounds are fatal; where, above all, recurrent pestilence and famine,
unfailing if of irregular recurrence, decimated the people, it has been all
important that woman should employ her creative power to its very uttermost
limits if the race were not at once to dwindle and die out. "May thy
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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 The Emerald City of Oz by L. Frank Baum: this patriotic song, when the Shaggy Man happened to sneeze.
He was a very loud and powerful sneezer at any time, and he had tried
so hard to hold in this sneeze that when it suddenly exploded the
result was terrible.
The paper dolls were mowed down by dozens, and flew and fluttered in
wild confusion in every direction, tumbling this way and that and
getting more or less wrinkled and bent.
A wail of terror and grief came from the scattered throng, and Miss
Cuttenclip exclaimed:
"Dear me! dear me!" and hurried at once to the rescue of her
overturned people.
The Emerald City of Oz |
