| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass: An American Slave by Frederick Douglass: is gone; she hides in the dim distance. I am left in
the hottest hell of unending slavery. O God, save
me! God, deliver me! Let me be free! Is there any
God? Why am I a slave? I will run away. I will not
stand it. Get caught, or get clear, I'll try it. I had
as well die with ague as the fever. I have only one
life to lose. I had as well be killed running as die
standing. Only think of it; one hundred miles
straight north, and I am free! Try it? Yes! God
helping me, I will. It cannot be that I shall live
and die a slave. I will take to the water. This very
The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass: An American Slave |
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 Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia by Samuel Johnson: know to be transient and probatory, and withdrawing our thoughts
from that of which every hour brings us nearer to the beginning,
and of which no length of time will bring us to the end.
Mortification is not virtuous in itself, nor has any other use but
that it disengages us from the allurements of sense. In the state
of future perfection to which we all aspire there will be pleasure
without danger and security without restraint."
The Princess was silent, and Rasselas, turning to the astronomer,
asked him whether he could not delay her retreat by showing her
something which she had not seen before.
"Your curiosity," said the sage, "has been so general, and your
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