| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from A Book of Remarkable Criminals by H. B. Irving: by a well-known dentist of Boston, Dr. Keep, in the year 1846.
In that year the new medical college was formally opened. Dr.
Parkman, a wealthy and public-spirited citizen of Boston, had
given the piece of land, on which the college had been erected.
He had been invited to be present at the opening ceremony. In
anticipation of being asked to make a speech on this occasion Dr.
Parkman, whose teeth were few and far between, had himself fitted
by Dr. Keep with a complete set of false teeth. Oliver Wendell
Holmes, then Professor of Anatomy at Harvard, who was present at
the opening of the college, noticed how very nice and white the
doctor's teeth appeared to be. It was the discovery of the
A Book of Remarkable Criminals |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Myths and Myth-Makers by John Fiske: these dark patches are supposed to be portions of a woman's
figure. A certain woman was once hammering something with a
mallet, when the moon arose, looking so much like a
bread-fruit that the woman asked it to come down and let her
child eat off a piece of it; but the moon, enraged at the
insult, gobbled up woman, mallet, and child, and there, in the
moon's belly, you may still behold them. According to the
Hottentots, the Moon once sent the Hare to inform men that as
she died away and rose again, so should men die and again come
to life. But the stupid Hare forgot the purport of the
message, and, coming down to the earth, proclaimed it far and
Myths and Myth-Makers |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from A treatise on Good Works by Dr. Martin Luther: to the first Three Commandments. But as matters stand now the
spiritual magistrates neglect their peculiar work, namely, the
fostering of godliness and discipline, like a mother who runs
away from her children and follows a lover, and instead they
undertake strange and evil works, like parents whose commands are
contrary to God. In this case members of the Church must do as
godly children do whose parents have become mad and insane.
Kings, princes, the nobility, municipalities and communities must
begin of their own accord and put a check to these conditions,
so that the bishops and the clergy, who are now too timid, may
be induced to follow. But even the civil magistrates must also
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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 I Have A Dream by Martin Luther King, Jr.: US revised this law in 1989, an no longer requires such notice.
#STARTMARK#
I have a Dream
by Martin Luther King, Jr.
Delivered on the steps at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington
D.C. on August 28, 1963
Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow
we stand signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous
decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro
slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice.
It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of captivity.
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