| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Lost Princess of Oz by L. Frank Baum: be reading or working out some new sort of magic to do good to her
people."
"Any of these things may be true," replied Jellia Jamb, "so I haven't
dared disturb our royal mistress. You, however, are a privileged
character, Princess, and I am sure that Ozma wouldn't mind at all if
you went in to see her."
"Of course not," said Dorothy, and opening the door of the outer
chamber, she went in. All was still here. She walked into another
room, which was Ozma's boudoir, and then, pushing back a heavy drapery
richly broidered with threads of pure gold, the girl entered the
sleeping-room of the fairy Ruler of Oz. The bed of ivory and gold was
The Lost Princess of Oz |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Wrecker by Stevenson & Osbourne: blood flowed among the dishes on the cloth.
The suddenness of the attack and the catastrophe, the instant
change from peace to war and from life to death, held all men
spellbound. Yet a moment they sat about the table staring
open-mouthed upon the prostrate captain and the flowing
blood. The next, Goddedaal had leaped to his feet, caught up
the stool on which he had been sitting, and swung it high in air,
a man transfigured, roaring (as he stood) so that men's ears
were stunned with it. There was no thought of battle in the
Currency Lasses; none drew his weapon; all huddled helplessly
from before the face of the baresark Scandinavian. His first
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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 Twelve Stories and a Dream by H. G. Wells: suppose I slep' a wink any of those nights, thinking where I was
to take it, what I was to do with it, 'ow I was to explain it.
It made me regular ill. And days I was that dull, it made Jane
regular 'uffy. 'You ain't the same chap you was in London,' she
says, several times. I tried to lay it on 'er father and 'is Snacks,
but bless you, she knew better. What must she 'ave but that I'd
got another girl on my mind! Said I wasn't True. Well, we had
a bit of a row. But I was that set on the Treasure, I didn't seem
to mind a bit Anything she said.
"Well, at last I got a sort of plan. I was always a bit good at
planning, though carrying out isn't so much in my line. I thought it
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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 New Machiavelli by H. G. Wells: of her door upon me, which at that time I quite understood, which I
understand now, became for a time in my mind, through some obscure
process of the soul, an offence. I never crossed the landing to her
room again.
In all this matter, and, indeed, in all my relations with Margaret,
I perceive now I behaved badly and foolishly. My manifest blunder
is that I, who was several years older than she, much subtler and in
many ways wiser, never in any measure sought to guide and control
her. After our marriage I treated her always as an equal, and let
her go her way; held her responsible for all the weak and
ineffective and unfortunate things she said and did to me. She
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