| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Tik-Tok of Oz by L. Frank Baum: Indeed, the picture now showed the same rocky
landscape as before, but the three people and the
mule had disappeared from it.
"They are gone," said the Wizard, polishing the
silver plate and wrapping it in a fine cloth,
"because they are here."
At that moment Jellia Jamb entered the room.
"Your Highness," she said to Ozma, "the Shaggy
Man and another man are in the waiting room and
ask to pay their respects to you. Shaggy is crying
like a baby, but he says they are tears of joy."
Tik-Tok of Oz |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Phaedrus by Plato: unintentional offences I shall forgive, and intentional ones I shall try to
prevent; and these are the marks of a friendship which will last.
Do you think that a lover only can be a firm friend? reflect:--if this were
true, we should set small value on sons, or fathers, or mothers; nor should
we ever have loyal friends, for our love of them arises not from passion,
but from other associations. Further, if we ought to shower favours on
those who are the most eager suitors,--on that principle, we ought always
to do good, not to the most virtuous, but to the most needy; for they are
the persons who will be most relieved, and will therefore be the most
grateful; and when you make a feast you should invite not your friend, but
the beggar and the empty soul; for they will love you, and attend you, and
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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 Sentimental Journey by Laurence Sterne: scatter them in your path, - for Madame de Rambouliet did no more.
- I handed Madame de Rambouliet out of the coach; and had I been
the priest of the chaste Castalia, I could not have served at her
fountain with a more respectful decorum.
THE FILLE DE CHAMBRE. PARIS.
WHAT the old French officer had delivered upon travelling, bringing
Polonius's advice to his son upon the same subject into my head, -
and that bringing in Hamlet, and Hamlet the rest of Shakespeare's
works, I stopp'd at the Quai de Conti in my return home, to
purchase the whole set.
The bookseller said he had not a set in the world. COMMENT! said
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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 Theaetetus by Plato: the same with our own.
c. But the knowledge of the mind is not to any great extent derived from
the observation of the individual by himself. It is the growing
consciousness of the human race, embodied in language, acknowledged by
experience, and corrected from time to time by the influence of literature
and philosophy. A great, perhaps the most important, part of it is to be
found in early Greek thought. In the Theaetetus of Plato it has not yet
become fixed: we are still stumbling on the threshold. In Aristotle the
process is more nearly completed, and has gained innumerable abstractions,
of which many have had to be thrown away because relative only to the
controversies of the time. In the interval between Thales and Aristotle
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