| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The New Machiavelli by H. G. Wells: good and bad series of consequences. It seemed the only thing
capable of bracing English minds to education, sustained
constructive effort and research; but on the other hand it produced
the quality of a panic, hasty preparation, impatience of thought, a
wasteful and sometimes quite futile immediacy. In 1909, for
example, there was a vast clamour for eight additional Dreadnoughts--
"We want eight
And we won't wait,"
but no clamour at all about our national waste of inventive talent,
our mean standard of intellectual attainment, our disingenuous
criticism, and the consequent failure to distinguish men of the
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz by L. Frank Baum: under her arm. The conductor helped her off the car and then the
engineer started his train again, so that it puffed and groaned and
moved slowly away up the track. The reason he was so late was because
all through the night there were times when the solid earth shook and
trembled under him, and the engineer was afraid that at any moment the
rails might spread apart and an accident happen to his passengers. So
he moved the cars slowly and with caution.
The little girl stood still to watch until the train had disappeared
around a curve; then she turned to see where she was.
The shed at Hugson's Siding was bare save for an old wooden bench, and
did not look very inviting. As she peered through the soft gray light
Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Give Me Liberty Or Give Me Death by Patrick Henry: guard shall be stationed in every house? Shall we gather strength but
irresolution and inaction? Shall we acquire the means of effectual resistance
by lying supinely on our backs and hugging the delusive phantom of hope, until
our enemies shall have bound us hand and foot? Sir, we are not weak if we make
a proper use of those means which the God of nature hath placed in our power.
The millions of people, armed in the holy cause of liberty, and in such a
country as that which we possess, are invincible by any force which our enemy
can send against us. Besides, sir, we shall not fight our battles alone.
There is a just God who presides over the destinies of nations, and who will
raise up friends to fight our battles for us. The battle, sir, is not to the
strong alone; it is to the vigilant, the active, the brave. Besides, sir,
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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 Concerning Christian Liberty by Martin Luther: works, which are done over and above for the subjection of the
body, since you have abundance for yourself through your faith,
in which God has given you all things?
We give this rule: the good things which we have from God ought
to flow from one to another and become common to all, so that
every one of us may, as it were, put on his neighbour, and so
behave towards him as if he were himself in his place. They
flowed and do flow from Christ to us; He put us on, and acted for
us as if He Himself were what we are. From us they flow to those
who have need of them; so that my faith and righteousness ought
to be laid down before God as a covering and intercession for the
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