| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass: An American Slave by Frederick Douglass: cerning it. He deemed all such inquiries on the part
of a slave improper and impertinent, and evidence
of a restless spirit. The nearest estimate I can give
makes me now between twenty-seven and twenty-
eight years of age. I come to this, from hearing my
master say, some time during 1835, I was about
seventeen years old.
My mother was named Harriet Bailey. She was
the daughter of Isaac and Betsey Bailey, both col-
ored, and quite dark. My mother was of a darker
The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass: An American Slave |
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 Dreams by Olive Schreiner: her? Your birds were real: all could hear them sing! Oh, fool! vile
reptile! atheist!" they cried, "you pollute the air."
"Come, let us take up stones and stone him," cried some.
"What affair is it of ours?" said others. "Let the idiot go," and went
away. But the rest gathered up stones and mud and threw at him. At last,
when he was bruised and cut, the hunter crept away into the woods. And it
was evening about him.
He wandered on and on, and the shade grew deeper. He was on the borders
now of the land where it is always night. Then he stepped into it, and
there was no light there. With his hands he groped; but each branch as he
touched it broke off, and the earth was covered with cinders. At every step
|
