| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from United States Declaration of Independence: interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been
deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore,
acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them,
as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.
We, therefore, the Representatives of the United States of America,
in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of
the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name,
and by the Authority of the good People of these Colonies,
solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are,
and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States;
that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown,
United States Declaration of Independence |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Christ in Flanders by Honore de Balzac: let me finish my time in hell here in this world of misery."
And again she cried, "Holy Virgin, Mother of God, have pity upon me!"
"Be comforted, mother. God is not a Lombard usurer. I may have killed
people good and bad at random in my time, but I am not afraid of the
resurrection."
"Ah! master Lancepesade, how happy those fair ladies are, to be so
near to a bishop, a holy man! They will get absolution for their
sins," said the old woman. "Oh! if I could only hear a priest say to
me, 'Thy sins are forgiven!' I should believe it then."
The stranger turned towards her, and the goodness in his face made her
tremble.
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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 Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz by L. Frank Baum: love Dorothy, and as one of my small friends aptly states: "It isn't a
real Oz story without her." So here she is again, as sweet and gentle
and innocent as ever, I hope, and the heroine of another strange adventure.
There were many requests from my little correspondents for "more about
the Wizard." It seems the jolly old fellow made hosts of friends in
the first Oz book, in spite of the fact that he frankly acknowledged
himself "a humbug." The children had heard how he mounted into the
sky in a balloon and they were all waiting for him to come down again.
So what could I do but tell "what happened to the Wizard afterward"?
You will find him in these pages, just the same humbug Wizard as before.
There was one thing the children demanded which I found it impossible
Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz |
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 Sesame and Lilies by John Ruskin: on each other, and fill in with such unprinted lectures or studies
as seem to me worth preserving, so as to keep the volumes, on an
average, composed of about a hundred leaves each.
The first book of which a new edition is required chances to be
'Sesame and Lilies,' from which I now detach the whole preface,
about the Alps, for use elsewhere; and to I which I add a lecture
given in Ireland on a subject closely connected with that of the
book itself. I am glad that it should be the first of the complete
series, for many reasons; though in now looking over these two
lectures, I am painfully struck by the waste of good work in them.
They cost me much thought, and much strong emotion; but it was
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