| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Vision Splendid by William MacLeod Raine: resentment against machine and corporate domination grew more
bitter. Stinging resolutions from the back counties were wired to
members who had backslidden. Committees of prominent citizens from
up state and across the mountains arrived at Verden for heart-to-
heart talks with the assemblymen from their districts.
At a hurried meeting of the managers of the public utilities
companies it was decided that the challenge of the _World_ must
be accepted. For many who had believed in the total depravity of
Jefferson Farnum were beginning to doubt. Unless the man's
character could be impeached successfully the day was lost. And
with four witnesses against him how could the trouble maker
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass: An American Slave by Frederick Douglass: elasticity was crushed, my intellect languished, the
disposition to read departed, the cheerful spark that
lingered about my eye died; the dark night of slavery
closed in upon me; and behold a man transformed
into a brute!
Sunday was my only leisure time. I spent this in
a sort of beast-like stupor, between sleep and wake,
under some large tree. At times I would rise up, a
flash of energetic freedom would dart through my
soul, accompanied with a faint beam of hope, that
The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass: An American Slave |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Hellenica by Xenophon: misconception[10] on the part of Critias, for at the date of these
occurrences he was not in Athens. He was away in Thessaly, laying the
foundations of a democracy with Prometheus, and arming the
Penestae[11] against their masters. Heaven forbid that any of his
transactions there should be re-enacted here. However, I must say, I
do heartily concur with him on one point. Whoever desires to exclude
you from the government, or to strength the hands of your secret foes,
deserves and ought to meet with condign punishment; but who is most
capable of so doing? That you will best discover, I think, by looking
a little more closely into the past and the present conduct of each of
us. Well, then! up to the moment at which you were formed into a
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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 Tess of the d'Urbervilles, A Pure Woman by Thomas Hardy: keeping house, all the other occupants of the domicile
being away. As they talked she looked thoughtfully up
at him, and met his two appreciative eyes.
"I am not worthy of you--no, I am not!" she burst out,
jumping up from her low stool as though appalled at his
homage, and the fulness of her own joy thereat.
Clare, deeming the whole basis of her excitement to be
that which was only the smaller part of it, said----
"I won't have you speak like it, dear Tess!
Distinction does not consist in the facile use of a
contemptible set of conventions, but in being numbered
Tess of the d'Urbervilles, A Pure Woman |
