| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Faraday as a Discoverer by John Tyndall: rush in the opposite direction accompanied its withdrawal.
The precision with which Faraday describes these results, and the
completeness with which he defines the boundaries of his facts,
are wonderful. The magnet, for example, must not be passed quite
through the coil, but only half through; for if passed wholly
through, the needle is stopped as by a blow, and then he shows how
this blow results from a reversal of the electric wave in the helix.
He next operated with the powerful permanent magnet of the Royal
Society, and obtained with it, in an exalted degree, all the
foregoing phenomena.
And now he turned the light of these discoveries upon the darkest
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Give Me Liberty Or Give Me Death by Patrick Henry: containing them all, in order to improve the content ratios of Etext
to header material.
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Give Me Liberty Or Give Me Death
Patrick Henry, March 23, 1775.
No man thinks more highly than I do of the patriotism, as well as abilities,
of the very worthy gentlemen who have just addressed the House. But different
men often see the same subject in different lights; and, therefore, I hope it
will not be thought disrespectful to those gentlemen if, entertaining as I do
opinions of a character very opposite to theirs, I shall speak forth my
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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 Pierre Grassou by Honore de Balzac: the fact of an obstinacy which constitutes the Breton character. What
he suffered, the manner in which he lived during those years of study,
God only knows. He suffered as much as great men suffer when they are
hounded by poverty and hunted like wild beasts by the pack of
commonplace minds and by troops of vanities athirst for vengeance.
As soon as he thought himself able to fly on his own wings, Fougeres
took a studio in the upper part of the rue des Martyrs, where he began
to delve his way. He made his first appearance in 1819. The first
picture he presented to the jury of the Exhibition at the Louvre
represented a village wedding rather laboriously copied from Greuze's
picture. It was rejected. When Fougeres heard of the fatal decision,
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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 End of the Tether by Joseph Conrad: out that he could not make himself happy on shore. He
was too much of a merchant sea-captain for mere yacht-
ing to satisfy him. He wanted the illusion of affairs;
and his acquisition of the Fair Maid preserved the con-
tinuity of his life. He introduced her to his acquaint-
ances in various ports as "my last command." When
he grew too old to be trusted with a ship, he would
lay her up and go ashore to be buried, leaving directions
in his will to have the bark towed out and scuttled
decently in deep water on the day of the funeral. His
daughter would not grudge him the satisfaction of
End of the Tether |
