| 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: carried up the stairs to the roof. This Gump resembled an Elk's head, only
the nose turned upward in a saucy manner and there were whiskers
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upon its chin, like those of a billy-goat. Why the Woggle-Bug selected this
article he could not have explained, except that it had aroused his
curiosity.
Tip, with the aid of the Saw-Horse, had brought a large, upholstered sofa to
the roof. It was an oldfashioned piece of furniture, with high back and
ends, and it was so heavy that even by resting the greatest weight upon the
back of the Saw-Horse, the boy found himself out of breath when at last the
clumsy sofa was dumped upon the roof.
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 Alcibiades I by Plato: back to Perseus, son of Zeus?
ALCIBIADES: Why, so does mine go back to Eurysaces, and he to Zeus!
SOCRATES: And mine, noble Alcibiades, to Daedalus, and he to Hephaestus,
son of Zeus. But, for all that, we are far inferior to them. For they are
descended 'from Zeus,' through a line of kings--either kings of Argos and
Lacedaemon, or kings of Persia, a country which the descendants of
Achaemenes have always possessed, besides being at various times sovereigns
of Asia, as they now are; whereas, we and our fathers were but private
persons. How ridiculous would you be thought if you were to make a display
of your ancestors and of Salamis the island of Eurysaces, or of Aegina, the
habitation of the still more ancient Aeacus, before Artaxerxes, son 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 The Call of the Wild by Jack London: dog. The Outsides were timid and frightened, the Insides without
confidence in their masters.
Buck felt vaguely that there was no depending upon these two men
and the woman. They did not know how to do anything, and as the
days went by it became apparent that they could not learn. They
were slack in all things, without order or discipline. It took
them half the night to pitch a slovenly camp, and half the morning
to break that camp and get the sled loaded in fashion so slovenly
that for the rest of the day they were occupied in stopping and
rearranging the load. Some days they did not make ten miles. On
other days they were unable to get started at all. And on no day
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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 Crisis in Russia by Arthur Ransome: was almost always far below freezing point. It is difficult to
make the conditions real except by individual examples. The
lack of medicines, due directly to the blockade, seems to
have small effect on the imagination when simply stated as
such. Perhaps people will realize what it means when
instead of talking of the wounded undergoing operations
without anesthetics I record the case of an acquaintance, a
Bolshevik, working in a Government office, who suffered
last summer from a slight derangement of the stomach due
to improper and inadequate feeding. His doctor
prescribed a medicine, and nearly a dozen different
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