| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Herland by Charlotte Gilman: somewhat darker than our northern races because of their constant
exposure to sun and air.
The country was far larger then, including much land beyond
the pass, and a strip of coast. They had ships, commerce, an army,
a king--for at that time they were what they so calmly called us
--a bi-sexual race.
What happened to them first was merely a succession of
historic misfortunes such as have befallen other nations often
enough. They were decimated by war, driven up from their
coastline till finally the reduced population, with many of the
men killed in battle, occupied this hinterland, and defended it for
Herland |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Apology by Plato: harm, although they never meant to do him any good.
He has a last request to make to them--that they will trouble his sons as
he has troubled them, if they appear to prefer riches to virtue, or to
think themselves something when they are nothing.
...
'Few persons will be found to wish that Socrates should have defended
himself otherwise,'--if, as we must add, his defence was that with which
Plato has provided him. But leaving this question, which does not admit of
a precise solution, we may go on to ask what was the impression which Plato
in the Apology intended to give of the character and conduct of his master
in the last great scene? Did he intend to represent him (1) as employing
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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 My Bondage and My Freedom by Frederick Douglass: controversy.
It has happened to me--as it has happened to most other men
engaged in a good cause--often to be more indebted to my enemies
than to my own skill or to the assistance of my friends, for
whatever success has attended my labors. Great surprise was <295
FREE CHURCH OF SCOTLAND>expressed by American newspapers, north
and south, during my stay in Great Britain, that a person so
illiterate and insignificant as myself could awaken an interest
so marked in England. These papers were not the only parties
surprised. I was myself not far behind them in surprise. But
the very contempt and scorn, the systematic and extravagant
My Bondage and My Freedom |
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 Lord Arthur Savile's Crime, etc. by Oscar Wilde: and when I arrived I found him in a state of great excitement. He
told me that he had at last discovered the true secret of
Shakespeare's Sonnets; that all the scholars and critics had been
entirely on the wrong tack; and that he was the first who, working
purely by internal evidence, had found out who Mr. W. H. really
was. He was perfectly wild with delight, and for a long time would
not tell me his theory. Finally, he produced a bundle of notes,
took his copy of the Sonnets off the mantelpiece, and sat down and
gave me a long lecture on the whole subject.
'He began by pointing out that the young man to whom Shakespeare
addressed these strangely passionate poems must have been somebody
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