| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Collected Articles by Frederick Douglass: entirely removed from the Republic. At any rate, to this grand work
of national regeneration and entire purification Congress must
now address Itself, with full purpose that the work shall this time
be thoroughly done. The deadly upas, root and branch, leaf and fibre,
body and sap, must be utterly destroyed. The country is evidently
not in a condition to listen patiently to pleas for postponement,
however plausible, nor will it permit the responsibility to be shifted
to other shoulders. Authority and power are here commensurate
with the duty imposed. There are no cloud-flung shadows to obscure the way.
Truth shines with brighter light and intenser heat at every moment,
and a country torn and rent and bleeding implores relief
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Lily of the Valley by Honore de Balzac: they faded out of sight in the impermeable ether. If you ask me why,
young and ardent, I continued in the deluding dreams of Platonic love,
I must own to you that I was not yet man enough to torture that woman,
who was always in dread of some catastrophe to her children, always
fearing some outburst of her husband's stormy temper, martyrized by
him when not afflicted by the illness of Jacques or Madeleine, and
sitting beside one or the other of them when her husband allowed her a
little rest. The mere sound of too warm a word shook her whole being;
a desire shocked her; what she needed was a veiled love, support
mingled with tenderness,--that, in short, which she gave to others.
Then, need I tell you, who are so truly feminine? this situation
The Lily of the Valley |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Macbeth by William Shakespeare: And to be more then what you were, you would
Be so much more the man. Nor time, nor place
Did then adhere, and yet you would make both:
They haue made themselues, and that their fitnesse now
Do's vnmake you. I haue giuen Sucke, and know
How tender 'tis to loue the Babe that milkes me,
I would, while it was smyling in my Face,
Haue pluckt my Nipple from his Bonelesse Gummes,
And dasht the Braines out, had I so sworne
As you haue done to this
Macb. If we should faile?
Macbeth |
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: able situations which we had just left, but to
be separated for life, and put to the very meanest
and most laborious drudgery; or else have been
tortured to death as examples, in order to strike
terror into the hearts of others, and thereby pre-
vent them from even attempting to escape from
their cruel taskmasters. It is a fact worthy of
remark, that nothing seems to give the slaveholders
so much pleasure as the catching and torturing of
fugitives. They had much rather take the keen and
poisonous lash, and with it cut their poor trembling
Running a Thousand Miles for Freedom |
