| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Passionate Pilgrim by William Shakespeare: To kiss and clip me till I run away!
XII.
Crabbed age and youth cannot live together
Youth is full of pleasance, age is full of care;
Youth like summer morn, age like winter weather;
Youth like summer brave, age like winter bare;
Youth is full of sport, age's breath is short;
Youth is nimble, age is lame;
Youth is hot and bold, age is weak and cold;
Youth is wild, and age is tame.
Age, I do abhor thee; youth, I do adore thee;
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Tin Woodman of Oz by L. Frank Baum: also thank you for saving me from that dreadful
Giantess, Mrs. Yoop. You have been good and patient
comrades and I have enjoyed our adventures together,
but I am never so happy as when on my dear Rainbow."
"Will your father scold you for getting left on the
earth?" asked Woot.
"I suppose so," said Polychrome gaily; "I'm always
getting scolded for my mad pranks, as they are called.
My sisters are so sweet and lovely and proper that they
never dance off our Rainbow, and so they never have any
adventures. Adventures to me are good fun, only I never
The Tin Woodman of Oz |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Memoir of Fleeming Jenkin by Robert Louis Stevenson: miles of her; when suddenly up went the fog, out came the sun, and
there, straight ahead, was the WM. CORY, our pioneer, and a little
dancing boat, the GULNARE, sending signals of welcome with many-
coloured flags. Since then we have been steaming in a grand
procession; but now at 2 A.M. the fog has fallen, and the great
roaring whistle calls up the distant answering notes all around us.
Shall we, or shall we not find the buoy?
'JULY 13. - All yesterday we lay in the damp dripping fog, with
whistles all round and guns firing so that we might not bump up
against one another. This little delay has let us get our reports
into tolerable order. We are now at 7 o'clock getting the cable
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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 Ancient Regime by Charles Kingsley: Revolution, when that had, under Napoleon, become a levelling
despotism; then it helped, as actively, to keep revolutionary
principles alive, after the reaction of 1815:--a Protean
institution, whose power we in England are as apt to undervalue as
the governments of the Continent were apt, during the eighteenth
century, to exaggerate it. I mean, of course, Freemasonry, and the
secret societies which, honestly and honourably disowned by
Freemasonry, yet have either copied it, or actually sprung out of
it. In England, Freemasonry never was, it seems, more than a
liberal and respectable benefit-club; for secret societies are
needless for any further purposes, amid free institutions and a free
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