| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain: away from him, screaming and crying, and took her
off. She was about sixteen, and very sweet and gentle
looking, but awful pale and scared.
Well, pretty soon the whole town was there, squirm-
ing and scrouging and pushing and shoving to get at
the window and have a look, but people that had the
places wouldn't give them up, and folks behind them
was saying all the time, "Say, now, you've looked
enough, you fellows; 'tain't right and 'tain't fair for
you to stay thar all the time, and never give nobody a
chance; other folks has their rights as well as you."
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Contrast by Royall Tyler: woman to perfection; though, by the laugh of the
horrid creatures round me, I suppose it was comedy.
Yet, on second thoughts, it might be some hero in a
tragedy, dying so comically as to set the whole house
in an uproar. Colonel, I presume you have been in
Europe?
MANLY
Indeed, Sir, I was never ten leagues from the conti-
nent.
DIMPLE
Believe me, Colonel, you have an immense pleasure
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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 My Bondage and My Freedom by Frederick Douglass: assuring them of his regret at the outrage, and promising that
the like should never occur again on board his steamers; and the
like, we believe, has never since occurred on board the
steamships of the Cunard line.
It is not very pleasant to be made the subject of such insults;
but if all such necessarily resulted as this one did, I should be
very happy to bear, patiently, many more than I have borne, of
<303 THE STING OF INSULT>the same sort. Albeit, the lash of
proscription, to a man accustomed to equal social position, even
for a time, as I was, has a sting for the soul hardly less severe
than that which bites the flesh and draws the blood from the back
My Bondage and My Freedom |
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 Madam How and Lady Why by Charles Kingsley: whinstones so delicately, that she can make them sauce and
seasoning for meat, vegetables, puddings, and almost everything
that you eat; and can put into your veins things which were
spouted up red-hot by volcanos, ages and ages since, perhaps at
the bottom of ancient seas which are now firm dry land.
This is very strange--as all Madam How's doings are. And you
would think it stranger still if you had ever seen the flowing of
a lava stream.
Out of a cave of slag and cinders in the black hillside rushes a
golden river, flowing like honey, and yet so tough that you cannot
thrust a stick into it, and so heavy that great stones (if you
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