| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Life on the Mississippi by Mark Twain: his memory felt the strain and he was likely to miss fire. Yet, poor devil,
he had been patiently studying the part of Hamlet for more than thirty years,
and he lived and died in the belief that some day he would be invited
to play it!
And this is what came of that fleeting visit of those young
Englishmen to our village such ages and ages ago! What noble
horseshoes this man might have made, but for those Englishmen;
and what an inadequate Roman soldier he DID make!
A day or two after we reached St. Louis, I was walking along Fourth
Street when a grizzly-headed man gave a sort of start as he passed me,
then stopped, came back, inspected me narrowly, with a clouding brow,
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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 Running a Thousand Miles for Freedom by William and Ellen Craft: We enclosed our letter from the Rev. Mr. May
to Mr. Estlin, who at once wrote to invite us to his
house at Bristol. On arriving there, both Mr. and
Miss Estlin received us as cordially as did our first
good Quaker friends in Pennsylvania. It grieves
me much to have to mention that he is no more.
Everyone who knew him can truthfully say--
"Peace to the memory of a man of worth,
A man of letters, and of manners too!
Of manners sweet as Virtue always wears
When gay Good-nature dresses her in smiles."
Running a Thousand Miles for Freedom |
