| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Jolly Corner by Henry James: drop of this danger was, on the spot, a great lift of the whole
situation. Yet with another rare shift of the same subtlety he was
already trying to measure by how much more he himself might now be
in peril of fear; so rejoicing that he could, in another form,
actively inspire that fear, and simultaneously quaking for the form
in which he might passively know it.
The apprehension of knowing it must after a little have grown in
him, and the strangest moment of his adventure perhaps, the most
memorable or really most interesting, afterwards, of his crisis,
was the lapse of certain instants of concentrated conscious COMBAT,
the sense of a need to hold on to something, even after the manner
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Twilight Land by Howard Pyle: stood about, and a feast was served in plates of solid gold upon
a table-cloth of silver--a feast such as the beggar had never
dreamed of, and the poor man ate as he had never eaten in his
life before.
All the while that the king and the beggar were eating, musicians
played sweet music and dancers danced and singers sang.
Then when the feast was over there came ten young men, bringing
flasks and flagons of all kinds, full of the best wine in the
world; and the beggar drank as he had never drank in his life
before, and until his head spun like a top.
So the king and the beggar feasted and made merry, until at last
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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 The Patchwork Girl of Oz by L. Frank Baum: one spoke for a long time. Then the Tin Woodman
suddenly roused himself and said:
"We must all go back to the Emerald City
and ask Ozma's advice. She's a wise little girl,
our Ruler, and she may find a way to help Ojo
save his Unc Nunkie."
So the following morning the party started
on the journey to the Emerald City, which they
reached in due time without any important
adventure. It was a sad journey for Ojo, for
without the wing of the yellow butterfly he saw
The Patchwork Girl of 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 Christ in Flanders by Honore de Balzac: tower, near the choir. Thence I could see the whole of the building. I
gazed, and no ideas connected with it arose in my mind. I saw without
seeing the mighty maze of pillars, the great rose windows that hung
like a network suspended as by a miracle in air above the vast
doorways. I saw the doors at the end of the side aisles, the aerial
galleries, the stained glass windows framed in archways, divided by
slender columns, fretted into flower forms and trefoil by fine
filigree work of carved stone. A dome of glass at the end of the choir
sparkled as if it had been built of precious stones set cunningly. In
contrast to the roof with its alternating spaces of whiteness and
color, the two aisles lay to right and left in shadow so deep that the
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