| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Boys' Life of Abraham Lincoln by Helen Nicolay: one of them. Before he had been in office a month it had
transformed Secretary Seward from his rival into his lasting
friend. It made a warm friend out of the blunt, positive,
hot-tempered Edwin M. Stanton, who became Secretary of War in
place of Mr. Cameron. He was a man of strong will and great
endurance, and gave his Department a record for hard and
effective work that it would be difficult to equal. Many stories
are told of the disrespect he showed the President, and the
cross-purposes at which they labored. The truth is, that they
understood each other perfectly on all important matters, and
worked together through three busy trying years with
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Helen of Troy And Other Poems by Sara Teasdale: That all my house was hostile unto yours,
Now can I put my head against your breast
Here in the sight of all who choose to come?
K.
Are we not past the caring for their eyes
And nearer to the heaven than to earth?
Look up and see.
L.
I only see your face.
(She touches his hair with her hands. Murmuring under the tower.)
K.
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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 Tour Through Eastern Counties of England by Daniel Defoe: one of their representatives in Parliament. He has a very good
house at the entrance in at the south, or head gate of the town,
where he has had the honour several times to lodge and entertain
the late King William of glorious memory in his returning from
Holland by way of Harwich to London. Their recorder is Earl
Cowper, who has been twice Lord High Chancellor of England. But
his lordship not residing in those parts has put in for his deputy,
- Price, Esq., barrister-at-law, and who dwells in the town. There
are in Colchester eight churches besides those which are damaged,
and five meeting-houses, whereof two for Quakers, besides a Dutch
church and a French church.
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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 Critias by Plato: war-chariot, so as to make up ten thousand chariots, two horses and riders
upon them, a pair of chariot-horses without a seat, and an attendant and
charioteer, two hoplites, two archers, two slingers, three stone-shooters,
three javelin-men, and four sailors to make up the complement of twelve
hundred ships.
Each of the ten kings was absolute in his own city and kingdom. The
relations of the different governments to one another were determined by
the injunctions of Poseidon, which had been inscribed by the first kings on
a column of orichalcum in the temple of Poseidon, at which the kings and
princes gathered together and held a festival every fifth and every sixth
year alternately. Around the temple ranged the bulls of Poseidon, one of
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