| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte by Karl Marx: December 10. I shall not here return to it. Suffice it here to say
that it was a reaction of the farmers' class, who had been expected to
pay the costs of the February revolution, against the other classes of
the nation: it was a reaction of the country against the city. It met
with great favor among the soldiers, to whom the republicans of the
"National" had brought neither fame nor funds; among the great
bourgeoisie, who hailed Bonaparte as a bridge to the monarchy; and among
the proletarians and small traders, who hailed him as a scourge to
Cavaignac. I shall later have occasion to enter closer into the
relation of the farmers to the French revolution.
The epoch between December 20, 1848, and the dissolution of the
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Exiles by Honore de Balzac: From the sphere where the least degree of intelligence gleamed, to the
most translucent souls who could see the road by which to ascend to
God, was there not an ascending scale of spiritual gift? And did not
spirits of the same sphere understand each other like brothers in
soul, in flesh, in mind, and in feeling?"
From this the Doctor went on to unfold the most wonderful theories of
sympathy. He set forth in Biblical language the phenomena of love, of
instinctive repulsion, of strong affinities which transcend the laws
of space, of the sudden mingling of souls which seem to recognize each
other. With regard to the different degrees of strength of which our
affections are capable, he accounted for them by the place, more or
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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 A Journal of the Plague Year by Daniel Defoe: St Andrew's, Holborn, St Clement Danes, St Martin-in-the-Fields, and
in Westminster. The latter end of July it decreased in those parishes;
and coming east, it increased prodigiously in Cripplegate, St
Sepulcher's, St James's, Clarkenwell, and St Bride's and Aldersgate.
While it was in all these parishes, the city and all the parishes of the
Southwark side of the water and all Stepney, Whitechappel, Aldgate,
Wapping, and Ratcliff, were very little touched; so that people went
about their business unconcerned, carried on their trades, kept open
their shops, and conversed freely with one another in all the city, the
east and north-east suburbs, and in Southwark, almost as if the plague
had not been among us.
A Journal of the Plague Year |
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 Lost Princess of Oz by L. Frank Baum: next Oz Book." Some of the ideas advanced are mighty
interesting, while others are too extravagant to be
seriously considered -- even in a fairy tale. Yet I
like them all, and I must admit that the main idea in
"The Lost Princess of Oz" was suggested to me by a
sweet little girl of eleven who called to see me and to
talk about the Land of Oz. Said she: "I s'pose if Ozma
ever got lost, or stolen, ev'rybody in Oz would be
dreadful sorry."
That was all, but quite enough foundation to build
this present story on. If you happen to like the story,
The Lost Princess of Oz |
