| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from My Bondage and My Freedom by Frederick Douglass: patriotism, or any capacity for the feeling, it was whipped out
of me long since, by the lash of the American soul-drivers.
In thinking of America, I sometimes find myself admiring her
bright blue sky, her grand old woods, her fertile fields, her
beautiful rivers, her mighty lakes, and star-crowned mountains.
But my rapture is soon checked, my joy is soon turned to
mourning. When I remember that all is cursed with the infernal
spirit of slaveholding, robbery, and wrong; when I remember that
with the waters of her noblest rivers, the tears of my brethren
are borne to the ocean, disregarded and forgotten, and that her
most fertile fields drink daily of the warm blood of my outraged
My Bondage and My Freedom |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Tom Grogan by F. Hopkinson Smith: ye"--Lathers shrank back, cowering before her--"if ever I hear ye
openin' yer head about me, or me teams, or me work, I'll make ye
swallow every tooth in yer head. Send down somethin' with a
mustache, will I? There's not a man in the yard that's a match
for me, an' ye know it. Let one of 'em try that."
Her uplifted fist, tight-clenched, shot past Lathers's ear. A
quick blow, a plank knocked clear of its fastenings, and a flood
of daylight broke in behind Lathers's head!
"Now, the next time I come, Pete Lathers," she said firmly, "I'll
miss the plank and take yer face."
Then she turned, and stalked out of the yard.
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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 A Child's Garden of Verses by Robert Louis Stevenson: We may see how all things are
Seas and cities, near and far,
And the flying fairies' looks,
In the picture story-books.
How am I to sing your praise,
Happy chimney-corner days,
Sitting safe in nursery nooks,
Reading picture story-books?
V
My Treasures
These nuts, that I keep in the back of the nest,
A Child's Garden of Verses |
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 Memoir of Fleeming Jenkin by Robert Louis Stevenson: auspices of the British Association Committee on Electrical
Standards, is due to experimental work by Jenkin, described in a
paper, 'Experiments on Capacity,' constituting No. IV. of the
appendix to the Report presented by the Committee to the Dundee
Meeting of 1867. No other determination, so far as I know, of this
important element of electric measurement has hitherto been made;
and it is no small thing to be proud of in respect to Jenkin's fame
as a scientific and practical electrician that the microfarad which
we now all use is his.
The British Association unit of electrical resistance, on which was
founded the first practical approximation to absolute measurement
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