| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from I Have A Dream by Martin Luther King, Jr.: desert state, sweltering with the heat of injustice and
oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and
justice.
I have a dream that my four children will one day live in a
nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin
but by the content of their character.
I have a dream today.
I have a dream that one day the state of Alabama, whose
governor's lips are presently dripping with the words of
interposition and nullification, will be transformed into a
situation where little black boys and black girls will be able to
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Some Reminiscences by Joseph Conrad: would be on my part the greatest ingratitude ever to forget the
sallow, sunken face and the deep-set, dark eyes of the young
Cambridge man (he was a "passenger for his health" on board the
good ship Torrens outward bound to Australia) who was the first
reader of "Almayer's Folly"--the very first reader I ever had.
"Would it bore you very much reading a MS. in a handwriting like
mine?" I asked him one evening on a sudden impulse at the end of
a longish conversation whose subject was Gibbon's History.
Jacques (that was his name) was sitting in my cabin one stormy
dog-watch below, after bringing me a book to read from his own
travelling store.
Some Reminiscences |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from A Second Home by Honore de Balzac: room, but more like a convent parlor. Polished panels of dark walnut
made it gloomy enough, and around it some old-fashioned chairs covered
with worsted work and stiff armchairs were symmetrically arranged. The
stone chimney-shelf had no ornament but a discolored mirror, and on
each side of it were the twisted branches of a pair of candle-
brackets, such as were made at the time of the Peace of Utrecht.
Against a panel opposite, young Granville saw an enormous crucifix of
ebony and ivory surrounded by a wreath of box that had been blessed.
Though there were three windows to the room, looking out on a country-
town garden, laid out in formal square beds edged with box, the room
was so dark that it was difficult to discern, on the wall opposite the
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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 Louis Lambert by Honore de Balzac: powers will be absorbed in the use of his external senses, and the
angel will slowly perish by the materialization of both natures. In
the contrary case, if he nourishes his inner being with the aliment
needful to it, the soul triumphs over matter and strives to get free.
When they separate by the act of what we call death, the angel, strong
enough then to cast off its wrappings, survives and begins its real
life. The infinite variety which differentiates individual men can
only be explained by this twofold existence, which, again, is proved
and made intelligible by that variety.
In point of fact, the wide distance between a man whose torpid
intelligence condemns him to evident stupidity, and one who, by the
Louis Lambert |
