| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Talisman by Walter Scott: the unwieldy weapon, and then laid it in the rest. The sponsors,
heralds, and squires now retired to the barriers, and the
combatants sat opposite to each other, face to face, with couched
lance and closed visor, the human form so completely enclosed,
that they looked more like statues of molten iron than beings of
flesh and blood. The silence of suspense was now general. Men
breathed thicker, and their very souls seemed seated in their
eyes; while not a sound was to be heard save the snorting and
pawing of the good steeds, who, sensible of what was about to
happen, were impatient to dash into career. They stood thus for
perhaps three minutes, when, at a signal given by the Soldan, a
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Kwaidan by Lafcadio Hearn: knows all that she ought to know in regard to ventilation, disinfection,
drainage, moisture, and the danger of germs,-- germs being as visible,
perhaps, to her myopic sight as they become to our own eyes under the
microscope. Indeed, all matters of hygiene are so well comprehended that no
nurse ever makes a mistake about the sanitary conditions of her
neighborhood.
In spite of this perpetual labor no worker remains unkempt: each is
scrupulously neat, making her toilet many times a day. But as every worker
is born with the most beautiful of combs and brushes attached to her
wrists, no time is wasted in the toilet-room. Besides keeping themselves
strictly clean, the workers must also keep their houses and gardens in
Kwaidan |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Agesilaus by Xenophon: but an ill requital of pre-eminence, that, on the ground of his
perfection, a good man should forfeit the tribute even of imperfect
praise.
As touching, therefore, the excellency of his birth, what weightier,
what nobler testimony can be adduced than this one fact? To the
commemorative list of famous ancestry is added to-day the name[1]
Agesilaus as holding this or that numerical descent from Heracles, and
these ancestors no private persons, but kings sprung from the loins of
kings. Nor is it open to the gainsayer to contend that they were kings
indeed but of some chance city. Not so, but even as their family holds
highest honour in their fatherland, so too is their city the most
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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 I Have A Dream by Martin Luther King, Jr.: staggered by the winds of police brutality. You have been the
veterans of creative suffering. Continue to work with the faith
that unearned suffering is redemptive.
Go back to Mississippi, go back to Alabama, go back to Georgia,
go back to Louisiana, go back to the slums and ghettos of our
northern cities, knowing that somehow this situation can and will
be changed. Let us not wallow in the valley of despair.
I say to you today, my friends, that in spite of the difficulties
and frustrations of the moment, I still have a dream. It is a
dream deeply rooted in the American dream.
I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out
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