| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Tin Woodman of Oz by L. Frank Baum: Mrs. Yoop isn't looking."
They talked it over for a while longer and then Mrs.
Yoop returned. When she entered, the door opened
suddenly, at her command, and closed as soon as her
huge form had passed through the doorway. During that
day she entered her bedroom several times, on one
errand or another, but always she commanded the door to
close behind her and her prisoners found not the
slightest chance to leave the big hall in which they
were confined.
The Green Monkey thought it would be wise to make a
The Tin Woodman of Oz |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The King of the Golden River by John Ruskin: he saw the fair child lying near him on the rocks, and it cried to
him and moaned for water. "Water, indeed," said Schwartz; "I
haven't half enough for myself," and passed on. And as he went he
thought the sunbeams grew more dim, and he saw a low bank of black
cloud rising out of the west; and when he had climbed for another
hour, the thirst overcame him again and he would have drunk. Then
he saw the old man lying before him on the path, and heard him cry
out for water. "Water, indeed," said Schwartz; "I haven't half
enough for myself," and on he went. Then again the light seemed to
fade from before his eyes, and he looked up, and, behold, a mist, of
the color of blood, had come over the sun; and the bank of black
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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 Democracy In America, Volume 1 by Alexis de Toqueville: sugar-cane, demands, on the other hand, unremitting attention:
and women and children are employed in it, whose services are of
but little use in the cultivation of wheat. Thus slavery is
naturally more fitted to the countries from which these
productions are derived. Tobacco, cotton, and the sugar-cane are
exclusively grown in the South, and they form one of the
principal sources of the wealth of those States. If slavery were
abolished, the inhabitants of the South would be constrained to
adopt one of two alternatives: they must either change their
system of cultivation, and then they would come into competition
with the more active and more experienced inhabitants of 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 Menexenus by Plato: have died on behalf of their country; many and glorious things I have
spoken of them, and there are yet many more and more glorious things
remaining to be told--many days and nights would not suffice to tell of
them. Let them not be forgotten, and let every man remind their
descendants that they also are soldiers who must not desert the ranks of
their ancestors, or from cowardice fall behind. Even as I exhort you this
day, and in all future time, whenever I meet with any of you, shall
continue to remind and exhort you, O ye sons of heroes, that you strive to
be the bravest of men. And I think that I ought now to repeat what your
fathers desired to have said to you who are their survivors, when they went
out to battle, in case anything happened to them. I will tell you what I
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