| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Chronicles of the Canongate by Walter Scott: me; "but ye might as weel say Mrs. MacEvoy, for she is na
a'body's Shanet--umph."
"You must be MY Janet, though, for all that. Have you forgot me?
Do you not remember Chrystal Croftangry?"
The light, kind-hearted creature threw her napkin into the open
door, skipped down the stair like a fairy, three steps at once,
seized me by the hands--both hands--jumped up, and actually
kissed me. I was a little ashamed; but what swain, of somewhere
inclining to sixty could resist the advances of a fair
contemporary? So we allowed the full degree of kindness to the
meeting--HONI SOIT QUI MAL Y PENSE--and then Janet entered
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Tattine by Ruth Ogden [Mrs. Charles W. Ide]: sides with all the regularity of a Rider Engine. Tattine's first thought was
for the rabbit, and she held it close to her, stroking it with one little
brown trembling hand and saying, "There! there! Hush, you little dear; you're
safe now, don't be frightened! Tattine wouldn't hurt you for the world." Her
next thought was for Doctor, and she turned on him with a torrent of abuse,
that ought to have made the hair of that young M.D. stand on end. "Oh, you
cruel, CRUEL dog! whatever made you do such a thing as this? I never dreamt it
of you, never." At this Betsy's tail dropped between her legs, for she was a
coward at heart, but Doctor held his ground, his tail standing on end, as his
hair should have done, and his eyes all the while fairly devouring the little
rabbit. "And the worst of it," continued Tattine, "is that no matter how sorry
|
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Father Damien by Robert Louis Stevenson: to read: I conceive you as a man quite beyond and below the
reticences of civility: with what measure you mete, with that shall
it be measured you again; with you, at last, I rejoice to feel the
button off the foil and to plunge home. And if in aught that I
shall say I should offend others, your colleagues, whom I respect
and remember with affection, I can but offer them my regret; I am
not free, I am inspired by the consideration of interests far more
large; and such pain as can be inflicted by anything from me must
be indeed trifling when compared with the pain with which they read
your letter. It is not the hangman, but the criminal, that brings
dishonour on the house.
|
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 Collected Articles by Frederick Douglass: people there, than in New Bedford. I was amazed when Mr. Johnson told me
that there was nothing in the laws or constitution of Massachusetts
that would prevent a colored man from being governor of the State,
if the people should see fit to elect him. There, too, the black man's
children attended the public schools with the white man's children,
and apparently without objection from any quarter. To impress me
with my security from recapture and return to slavery, Mr. Johnson
assured me that no slave-holder could take a slave out of New Bedford;
that there were men there who would lay down their lives to save me
from such a fate.
The fifth day after my arrival, I put on the clothes of a common laborer,
|
