| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Captain Stormfield by Mark Twain: head-wind, wings was a mistake. I could see that a body could sail
pretty close to the wind, but he couldn't go in the wind's eye. I
could see that if I wanted to go a-visiting any distance from home,
and the wind was ahead, I might have to wait days, maybe, for a
change; and I could see, too, that these things could not be any
use at all in a gale; if you tried to run before the wind, you
would make a mess of it, for there isn't anyway to shorten sail -
like reefing, you know - you have to take it ALL in - shut your
feathers down flat to your sides. That would LAND you, of course.
You could lay to, with your head to the wind - that is the best you
could do, and right hard work you'd find it, too. If you tried any
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from American Notes by Rudyard Kipling: full of other races--some that looked exactly like Gallas (but
the trade was never recruited from that side of Africa), some
duplicates of Cameroon heads, and some Kroomen, if ever Kroomen
wore evening dress.
The American does not consider little matters of descent, though
by this time he ought to know all about "damnable heredity." As
a general rule he keeps himself very far from the negro, and says
things about him that are not pretty. There are six million
negroes, more or less, in the States, and they are increasing.
The American, once having made them citizens, cannot unmake them.
He says, in his newspapers, they ought to be elevated by
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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 Walking by Henry David Thoreau: the rest, and out of such a wilderness comes the Reformer eating
locusts and wild honey.
To preserve wild animals implies generally the creation of a
forest for them to dwell in or resort to. So it is with man. A
hundred years ago they sold bark in our streets peeled from our
own woods. In the very aspect of those primitive and rugged trees
there was, methinks, a tanning principle which hardened and
consolidated the fibers of men's thoughts. Ah! already I shudder
for these comparatively degenerate days of my native village,
when you cannot collect a load of bark of good thickness, and we
no longer produce tar and turpentine.
Walking |
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 Maria, or the Wrongs of Woman by Mary Wollstonecraft: extinguish the hopes, the maybes of a lively imagination. Death
I had hailed as my only chance for deliverance; but, while existence
had still so many charms, and life promised happiness, I shrunk
from the icy arms of an unknown tyrant, though far more inviting
than those of the man, to whom I supposed myself bound without any
other alternative; and was content to linger a little longer,
waiting for I knew not what, rather than leave 'the warm precincts
of the cheerful day,' and all the unenjoyed affection of my nature.
"My present situation gave a new turn to my reflection; and
I wondered (now the film seemed to be withdrawn, that obscured the
piercing sight of reason) how I could, previously to the deciding
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