| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Magic of Oz by L. Frank Baum: far spent before the happy girl Ruler had examined all her presents
and thanked those who had lovingly donated them.
23. The Fountain of Oblivion
The morning after the birthday fete, as the Wizard and Dorothy were walking
in the grounds of the palace, Ozma came out and joined them, saying:
"I want to hear more of your adventures in the Forest of Gugu, and
how you were able to get those dear little monkeys to use in Dorothy's
Surprise Cake."
So they sat down on a marble bench near to the Fountain of the Water of
Oblivion, and between them Dorothy and the Wizard related their adventures.
"I was dreadfully fussy while I was a woolly lamb," said Dorothy,
The Magic of Oz |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Memoir of Fleeming Jenkin by Robert Louis Stevenson: another; and Fleeming was to her the nameless assistant of a
nameless firm of engineers, doing his inglorious business, as she
now saw for herself, among unsavoury surroundings. But when their
walk brought them within view of the river, she beheld a sight to
her of the most novel beauty: four great, sea-going ships dressed
out with flags. 'How lovely!' she cried. 'What is it for?' - 'For
you,' said Fleeming. Her surprise was only equalled by her
pleasure. But perhaps, for what we may call private fame, there is
no life like that of the engineer; who is a great man in out-of-
the-way places, by the dockside or on the desert island or in
populous ships, and remains quite unheard of in the coteries of
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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 Historical Lecturers and Essays by Charles Kingsley: more immediate consequence, Svend Fork-beard, whom we Englishmen
call Sweyn--the renegade from that Christian Faith which had been
forced on him by his German conqueror, the Emperor Otto II.--with
his illustrious son Cnut, whom we call Canute, were just calling
together all the most daring spirits of the Baltic coasts for the
subjugation of England; and when that great feat was performed, the
Scandinavian emigration was paralysed, probably, for a time by the
fearful wars at home. While the king of Sweden, and St. Olaf
Tryggvason, king of Norway, were setting on Denmark during Cnut's
pilgrimage to Rome, and Cnut, sailing with a mighty fleet to Norway,
was driving St. Olaf into Russia, to return and fall in the
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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 Pupil by Henry James: successfully pretend not to understand. Not successfully, he felt,
as Mr. and Mrs. Moreen, dinnerless by their extinguished hearth,
rose before him in their little dishonoured salon, casting about
with glassy eyes for the nearest port in such a storm. They were
not prostrate but were horribly white, and Mrs. Moreen had
evidently been crying. Pemberton quickly learned however that her
grief was not for the loss of her dinner, much as she usually
enjoyed it, but the fruit of a blow that struck even deeper, as she
made all haste to explain. He would see for himself, so far as
that went, how the great change had come, the dreadful bolt had
fallen, and how they would now all have to turn themselves about.
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