| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Ancient Regime by Charles Kingsley: Revolution of 1793, the noblest and the foulest characters labouring
in concert, and side by side--often, too, paradoxical as it may
seem, united in the same personage. The explanation is simple.
Justice inspired the one; the other was the child of simple envy.
But this passion of envy, if it becomes permanent and popular, may
avenge itself, like all other sins. A nation may say to itself,
"Provided we have no superiors to fall our pride, we are content.
Liberty is a slight matter, provided we have equality. Let us be
slaves, provided we are all slaves alike." It may destroy every
standard of humanity above its own mean average; it may forget that
the old ruling class, in spite of all its defects and crimes, did at
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Father Damien by Robert Louis Stevenson: think I am a man more than usually timid; but I never recall the
days and nights I spent upon that island promontory (eight days and
seven nights), without heartfelt thankfulness that I am somewhere
else. I find in my diary that I speak of my stay as a "grinding
experience": I have once jotted in the margin, "HARROWING is the
word"; and when the MOKOLII bore me at last towards the outer
world, I kept repeating to myself, with a new conception of their
pregnancy, those simple words of the song -
" 'Tis the most distressful country that ever yet was seen."
And observe: that which I saw and suffered from was a settlement
purged, bettered, beautified; the new village built, the hospital
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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 Scarecrow of Oz by L. Frank Baum: there's Button-Bright!" and this drew Ozma also to look
at the picture, for she and Dorothy knew the boy well.
"Who is Button-Bright?" asked Betsy, who had never met
him.
"Why, he's the little boy who is just getting off the
back of that strange flying creature," exclaimed Dorothy.
Then she turned to Ozma and asked: "What is that thing,
Ozma? A bird? I've never seen anything like it before."
"It is an Ork," answered Ozma, for they were watching
the scene where the Ork and the three big birds were
first landing their passengers in Jinxland after the long
The Scarecrow 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 Faraday as a Discoverer by John Tyndall: cautious latterly in expressing himself upon this subject; but as a
matter of fact he held that an infinitesimal quantity of electricity
might pass through a compound liquid without producing its
decomposition. De la Rive, who has been a great worker on the
chemical phenomena of the pile, is very emphatic on the other side.
Experiment, according to him and others, establishes in the most
conclusive manner that no trace of electricity can pass through a
liquid compound without producing its equivalent decomposition.[2]
Faraday has now got fairly entangled amid the chemical phenomena of
the pile, and here his previous training under Davy must have been
of the most important service to him. Why, he asks, should
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