| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Travels with a Donkey in the Cevenne by Robert Louis Stevenson: the nocturnal practical joker, were daily and eloquently forced on
my attention. Yet in these vaticinations, the true, patent danger
was left out. Like Christian, it was from my pack I suffered by
the way. Before telling my own mishaps, let me in two words relate
the lesson of my experience. If the pack is well strapped at the
ends, and hung at full length - not doubled, for your life - across
the pack-saddle, the traveller is safe. The saddle will certainly
not fit, such is the imperfection of our transitory life; it will
assuredly topple and tend to overset; but there are stones on every
roadside, and a man soon learns the art of correcting any tendency
to overbalance with a well-adjusted stone.
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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 Boys' Life of Abraham Lincoln by Helen Nicolay: ill, and attacked him, inflicting three terrible knife wounds on
his neck and cheek, wounding also the Secretary's two sons, a
servant, and a soldier nurse who tried to overpower him. Finally
breaking away, he ran downstairs, reached the door unhurt, and
springing upon his horse rode off. It was feared that neither the
Secretary nor his eldest son would live, but both in time
recovered.
Although Booth had been recognized by dozens of people as he
stood before the footlights brandishing his dagger, his swift
horse soon carried him beyond any hap-hazard pursuit. He crossed
the Navy Yard bridge and rode into Maryland, being joined by one
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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 The Gods of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs: We decided to wait for an hour at least until all the stragglers
had sought their silks. In the meantime I was to fetch the red
youth to our cell so that we would be in readiness to make our
rash break for freedom together.
I sprang to the top of our partition wall and pulled myself
up on to it. There I found a flat surface about a foot in
width and along this I walked until I came to the cell in
which I saw the boy sitting upon his bench. He had been
leaning back against the wall looking up at the glowing dome
above Omean, and when he spied me balancing upon the
partition wall above him his eyes opened wide in astonishment.
The Gods of Mars |
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 What is Man? by Mark Twain: the stake rather than be recreant to it.
O.M. It is his make and his training. He has to content
the spirit that is in him, though it cost him his life. Another
man, just as sincerely religious, but of different temperament,
will fail of that duty, though recognizing it as a duty, and
grieving to be unequal to it: but he must content the spirit
that is in him--he cannot help it. He could not perform that
duty for duty's SAKE, for that would not content his spirit, and
the contenting of his spirit must be looked to FIRST. It takes
precedence of all other duties.
Y.M. Take the case of a clergyman of stainless private
What is Man? |
