| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Boys' Life of Abraham Lincoln by Helen Nicolay: "was within your easy grasp," he told him, "and to have closed
upon him would, in connection with our other late successes, have
ended the war. As it is, the war will be prolonged indefinitely.
. . . Your golden opportunity is gone and I am distressed
immeasurably because of it." But Meade never received this
letter. Deeply as the President felt Meade's fault, his spirit of
forgiveness was so quick, and his thankfulness for the measure of
success that had been gained, so great, that he put it in his
desk, and it was never signed or sent.
The battle of Gettysburg was indeed a notable victory, and
coupled with the fall of Vicksburg, which surrendered to General
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Lily of the Valley by Honore de Balzac: devotion and a woman's graceful intellect. She is proud; she is worthy
of being a Lenoncourt. My motherhood, once so tried, so tortured, is
happy now, happy with an infinite happiness, unmixed with pain. Yes,
my life is full, my life is rich. You see, God makes my joy to blossom
in the heart of these sanctified affections, and turns to bitterness
those that might have led me astray--"
"Good!" cried the abbe, joyfully. "Monsieur le vicomte begins to know
as much as I--"
Just then Jacques coughed.
"Enough for to-day, my dear abbe," said the countess, "above all, no
chemistry. Go for a ride on horseback, Jacques," she added, letting
The Lily of the Valley |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte by Karl Marx: of their own republicanism and their own legislative rights against the
Executive power and the royalists I need not here narrate the shameful
history of their dissolution. It was not a downfall, it was extinction.
Their history is at an end for all time. In the period that follows,
they figure, whether within or without the Assembly, only as
memories--memories that seem again to come to life so soon as the
question is again only the word "Republic," and as often as the
revolutionary conflict threatens to sink down to the lowest level. In
passing, I might observe that the journal which gave to this party its
name, the "National," goes over to Socialism during the following
period.
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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 King Henry VI by William Shakespeare: O'ertake me, if thou canst; I scorn thy strength.
Go, go, cheer up thy hungry-starved men;
Help Salisbury to make his testament:
This day is ours, as many more shall be.
[Exit.]
TALBOT.
My thoughts are whirled like a potter's wheel;
I know not where I am, nor what I do;
A witch, by fear, not force, like Hannibal,
Drives back our troops and conquers as she lists.
So bees with smoke and doves with noisome stench
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