| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Marvelous Land of Oz by L. Frank Baum: The command to march was now given, and the girls formed themselves into
four bands, or companies, and set off with eager strides toward the Emerald
City.
Line-Art Drawing on the right of this page.
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The boy followed after them, carrying several baskets and wraps and packages
which various members of the Army of Revolt had placed in his care. It was
not long before they came to the green granite walls of the City and halted
before the gateway.
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The Guardian of the Gate at once came out and looked at them curiously, as
The Marvelous Land of Oz |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Collection of Antiquities by Honore de Balzac: this happened specially in the provinces, where either party accused
the other of unspeakable atrocities. In those days the blackest deeds
were done in politics, to secure public opinion on one side or the
other, to catch the votes of that public of fools which holds up hands
for those that are clever enough to serve out weapons to them.
Individuals are identified with their political opinions, and
opponents in public life forthwith became private enemies. It is very
difficult in a country town to avoid a man-to-man conflict of this
kind over interests or questions which in Paris appear in a more
general and theoretical form, with the result that political
combatants also rise to a higher level; M. Laffitte, for example, 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 Two Poets by Honore de Balzac: developed. Pride, untempered by intercourse with the great world
becomes stiff and starched by contact with petty things; in a loftier
moral atmosphere it would have grown to noble magnanimity. Enthusiasm,
that virtue within a virtue, forming the saint, inspiring the devotion
hidden from all eyes and glowing out upon the world in verse, turns to
exaggeration, with the trifles of a narrow existence for its object.
Far away from the centres of light shed by great minds, where the air
is quick with thought, knowledge stands still, taste is corrupted like
stagnant water, and passion dwindles, frittered away upon the
infinitely small objects which it strives to exalt. Herein lies the
secret of the avarice and tittle-tattle that poison provincial life.
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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 Collected Articles by Frederick Douglass: to secure my freedom had not only failed, but had seemed only to rivet
my fetters the more firmly, and to render my escape more difficult.
Baffled, entangled, and discouraged, I had at times asked myself
the question, May not my condition after all be God's work,
and ordered for a wise purpose, and if so, Is not submission my duty?
A contest had in fact been going on in my mind for a long time,
between the clear consciousness of right and the plausible make-
shifts of theology and superstition. The one held me an abject
slave--a prisoner for life, punished for some transgression in
which I had no lot nor part; and the other counseled me to manly
endeavor to secure my freedom. This contest was now ended; my
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