| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Give Me Liberty Or Give Me Death by Patrick Henry: if we mean to preserve inviolate those inestimable privileges for which
we have been so long contending--if we mean not basely to abandon the noble
struggle in which we have been so long engaged, and which we have pledged
ourselves never to abandon until the glorious object of our contest
shall be obtained--we must fight! I repeat it, sir, we must fight!
An appeal to arms and to the God of hosts is all that is left us!
They tell us, sir, that we are weak; unable to cope with so formidable
an adversary. But when shall we be stronger? Will it be the next week,
or the next year? Will it be when we are totally disarmed, and when a British
guard shall be stationed in every house? Shall we gather strength but
irresolution and inaction? Shall we acquire the means of effectual resistance
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from An Inland Voyage by Robert Louis Stevenson: to the enigma, there was something solemn and uncomfortable in the
progress of one of these trains, as it moved gently along the water
with nothing to mark its advance but an eddy alongside dying away
into the wake.
Of all the creatures of commercial enterprise, a canal barge is by
far the most delightful to consider. It may spread its sails, and
then you see it sailing high above the tree-tops and the windmill,
sailing on the aqueduct, sailing through the green corn-lands: the
most picturesque of things amphibious. Or the horse plods along at
a foot-pace as if there were no such thing as business in the
world; and the man dreaming at the tiller sees the same spire on
|
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Grimm's Fairy Tales by Brothers Grimm: called to him for the third time, and as that was also to no purpose,
he ran against him and pushed the ghost down the stairs, so that it
fell down the ten steps and remained lying there in a corner.
Thereupon he rang the bell, went home, and without saying a word went
to bed, and fell asleep. The sexton's wife waited a long time for her
husband, but he did not come back. At length she became uneasy, and
wakened the boy, and asked: 'Do you know where my husband is? He
climbed up the tower before you did.' 'No, I don't know,' replied the
boy, 'but someone was standing by the sounding hole on the other side
of the steps, and as he would neither gave an answer nor go away, I
took him for a scoundrel, and threw him downstairs. Just go there and
Grimm's Fairy Tales |
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 The Faith of Men by Jack London: had survived wear and tear measured all of seven or eight inches.
I looked up into the man's face, and he pulled his foot down and
asked, "Find hide like that on your St Elias bear?"
I shook my head. "Nor on any other creature of land or sea," I
answered candidly. The thickness of it, and the length of the
hair, puzzled me.
"That," he said, and said without the slightest hint of
impressiveness, "that came from a mammoth."
"Nonsense!" I exclaimed, for I could not forbear the protest of my
unbelief. "The mammoth, my dear sir, long ago vanished from the
earth. We know it once existed by the fossil remains that we have
|
