| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Marvelous Land of Oz by L. Frank Baum: "I'll have to make a new one."
Then he led the Saw-Horse back to where Jack was vainly struggling to regain
his feet, and after assisting the Pumpkinhead to stand upright Tip whittled
out a new ear and fastened it to the horse's head.
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"Now," said he, addressing his steed, "pay attention to what I'm going to
tell you. 'Whoa!' means to stop; 'Get-Up!' means to walk forward; 'Trot!'
means to go as fast as you can. Understand?"
"I believe I do," returned the horse.
"Very good. We are all going on a journey to the Emerald City, to see His
Majesty, the Scarecrow; and Jack Pumpkinhead is going to ride on your back,
The Marvelous Land of Oz |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Charmides by Plato: admitting that the making anything might sometimes become a disgrace, when
the employment was not honourable, to have thought that work was never any
disgrace at all. For things nobly and usefully made he called works; and
such makings he called workings, and doings; and he must be supposed to
have called such things only man's proper business, and what is hurtful,
not his business: and in that sense Hesiod, and any other wise man, may be
reasonably supposed to call him wise who does his own work.
O Critias, I said, no sooner had you opened your mouth, than I pretty well
knew that you would call that which is proper to a man, and that which is
his own, good; and that the makings (Greek) of the good you would call
doings (Greek), for I am no stranger to the endless distinctions which
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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 Crowd by Gustave le Bon: CROWDS TERMED CRIMINAL CROWDS
Crowds termed criminal crowds--A crowd may be legally yet not
psychologically criminal--The absolute unconsciousness of the
acts of crowds--Various examples--Psychology of the authors of
the September massacres--Their reasoning, their sensibility,
their ferocity, and their morality.
Owing to the fact that crowds, after a period of excitement,
enter upon a purely automatic and unconscious state, in which
they are guided by suggestion, it seems difficult to qualify them
in any case as criminal. I only retain this erroneous
qualification because it has been definitely brought into vogue
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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 Crowd by Gustave le Bon: on the work in hand those mediocre qualities which are the
birthright of every average individual. In crowds it is
stupidity and not mother-wit that is accumulated. It is not all
the world, as is so often repeated, that has more wit than
Voltaire, but assuredly Voltaire that has more wit than all the
world, if by "all the world" crowds are to be understood.
If the individuals of a crowd confined themselves to putting in
common the ordinary qualities of which each of them has his
share, there would merely result the striking of an average, and
not, as we have said is actually the case, the creation of new
characteristics. How is it that these new characteristics are
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