| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from U. S. Project Trinity Report by Carl Maag and Steve Rohrer: exploded 100 tons of conventional high explosives at the test site.
The explosives were stacked on top of a 20-foot tower and contained
tubes of radioactive solution to simulate, at a low level of activity,
the radioactive products expected from a nuclear explosion. The test
produced a bright sphere which spread out in an oval form. A column
of smoke and debris rose as high as 15,000 feet before drifting
eastward. The explosion left a shallow crater 1.5 meters deep and 9
meters wide. Monitoring in the area revealed a level of radioactivity
low enough to allow workers to spend several hours in the area (3;
12).
The planned firing date for the TRINITY device was 4 July 1945. On 14
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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 Road to Oz by L. Frank Baum: retired to their rooms. Perhaps they would not have gone then had not
the band begun to play to announce new arrivals; but before they left
the great Throne-Room King Evardo added to Ozma's birthday presents a
diadem of diamonds set in radium.
The next comer proved to be King Renard of Foxville; or King Dox, as
he preferred to be called. He was magnificently dressed in a new
feather costume and wore white kid mittens over his paws and a flower
in his button-hole and had his hair parted in the middle.
King Dox thanked Dorothy fervently for getting him the invitation to
come to Oz, which he all his life longed to visit. He strutted around
rather absurdly as he was introduced to all the famous people
The Road to Oz |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Proposed Roads To Freedom by Bertrand Russell: wondered at that his followers, so far as regards their
immediate aims, have in the main become out-and-out
State Socialists. On the other hand, the Syndicalists,
who accept from Marx the doctrine of the class
war, which they regard as what is really vital in his
teaching, reject the State with abhorrence and wish
to abolish it wholly, in which respect they are at one
with the Anarchists. The Guild Socialists, though
some persons in this country regard them as extremists,
really represent the English love of compromise.
The Syndicalist arguments as to the dangers inherent
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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 Early Short Fiction of Edith Wharton by Edith Wharton: and her attitude of smiling majesty recalled that of Dosso
Dossi's Circe. She wore a red robe, flowing in closely fluted
lines from under a fancifully embroidered cloak. Above her high
forehead the crinkled golden hair flowed sideways beneath a veil;
one hand drooped on the arm of her chair; the other held up an
inverted human skull, into which a young Dionysus, smooth, brown
and sidelong as the St. John of the Louvre, poured a stream of
wine from a high-poised flagon. At the lady's feet lay the
symbols of art and luxury: a flute and a roll of music, a platter
heaped with grapes and roses, the torso of a Greek statuette, and
a bowl overflowing with coins and jewels; behind her, on the
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