| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Master Key by L. Frank Baum: ordinary walk.
"At this rate I'll get home some time next year," he grumbled.
"However, I suppose I ought to be glad the machine works at all." And
he really was glad.
All the afternoon and all the long summer night he moved slowly over
the water. It was annoying to go at "a reg'lar jog-trot," as Rob
called it, after his former swift flight; but there was no help for it.
Just as dawn was breaking he saw in the distance a small vessel,
sailing in the direction he was following, yet scarcely moving for
lack of wind. He soon caught up with it, but saw no one on deck, and
the craft had a dingy and uncared-for appearance that was not
The Master Key |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Alexandria and her Schools by Charles Kingsley: race, they had filled up the void by a ponderous demonology of
innumerable preservers. This process of thought was not confined to
Alexandria. Dr. Layard, in his last book on Nineveh, gives some curious
instances of its prevalence among them at an earlier period, well worth
your careful study. But it was at Alexandria that the Jewish Cabbalism
formed itself into a system. It was there that the Jews learnt to
become the jugglers and magic-mongers of the whole Roman world, till
Claudius had to expel them from Rome, as pests to rational and moral
society.
And yet, among these hapless pedants there lingered nobler thoughts and
hopes. They could not read the glorious heirlooms of their race without
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