| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne: or at least an island--one of the Canaries, or of the Cape Verde Islands.
The bearings not being yet taken, perhaps designedly, I was ignorant
of our exact position. In any case, such a wall seemed to me to mark
the limits of that Atlantis, of which we had in reality passed over only
the smallest part.
Much longer should I have remained at the window admiring
the beauties of sea and sky, but the panels closed. At this moment
the Nautilus arrived at the side of this high, perpendicular wall.
What it would do, I could not guess. I returned to my room;
it no longer moved. I laid myself down with the full intention
of waking after a few hours' sleep; but it was eight o'clock
20,000 Leagues Under the Sea |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Mad King by Edgar Rice Burroughs: troopers, set out once more with the balance of the com-
pany on foot.
It was with difficulty that the men forced their way
through the bushes, but they had not gone far when their
leader stopped before a sheer wall of earth and stone, cov-
ered with densely growing shrubbery. Here he groped in
the dim light, feeling his way with his hands before him,
while at his heels came his followers. At last he separated
a wall of bushes and disappeared within the aperture his
hands had made. One by one his men followed, finding
themselves in inky darkness, but upon a smooth stone floor
The Mad King |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Octopus by Frank Norris: own capital. Will you let it come to that? Will you drive us to
it? We who boast of our land of freedom, we who live in the
country of liberty?
"Go on as you have begun and it WILL come to that. Turn a deaf
ear to that cry of 'Let My people go' too long and another cry
will be raised, that you cannot choose but hear, a cry that you
cannot shut out. It will be the cry of the man on the street,
the 'a la Bastille' that wakes the Red Terror and unleashes
Revolution. Harassed, plundered, exasperated, desperate, the
people will turn at last as they have turned so many, many times
before. You, our lords, you, our task-masters, you, our kings;
|
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 My Bondage and My Freedom by Frederick Douglass: patched up from time to time to carry it forward. Looked at,
apart from the bones and sinews and body, it is a thing immortal.
It is the very essence of justice, liberty, and love. The moral
life of human society, it cannot die while conscience, honor, and
humanity remain. If but one be filled with it, the cause lives.
Its incarnation in any one individual man, leaves the whole world
a priesthood, occupying the highest moral eminence even that of
disinterested benevolence. Whoso has ascended his height, and
has the grace to stand there, has the world at his feet, and is
the world's teacher, as of divine right. He may set in judgment
on the age, upon the civilization of the age, and upon the
My Bondage and My Freedom |
