| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Second Inaugural Address by Abraham Lincoln: of our arms, upon which all else chiefly depends, is as well known
to the public as to myself; and it is, I trust, reasonably satisfactory
and encouraging to all. With high hope for the future, no prediction
in regard to it is ventured.
On the occasion corresponding to this four years ago, all thoughts
were anxiously directed to an impending civil war. All dreaded it--
all sought to avert it. While the inaugural address was being delivered
from this place, devoted altogether to saving the Union without war,
insurgent agents were in the city seeking to destroy it without war--
seeking to dissolve the Union, and divide effects, by negotiation.
Both parties deprecated war; but one of them would make war rather
Second Inaugural Address |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from An International Episode by Henry James: to the sin of being fastidious. I am told there is some remarkably
superior second-rate society provided here for strangers.
Merci! I don't want any superior second-rate society.
I want the society that I have been accustomed to."
"I hope you don't call Lambeth and me second rate," Beaumont interposed.
"Oh, I am accustomed to you," said Mrs. Westgate. "Do you know
that you English sometimes make the most wonderful speeches?
The first time I came to London I went out to dine--as I told you,
I have received a great deal of attention. After dinner,
in the drawing room, I had some conversation with an old lady;
I assure you I had. I forget what we talked about, but she
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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 Memories and Portraits by Robert Louis Stevenson: father, and one-quarter of myself, looked out upon us as we went by
to college. Nothing of all this would cross the mind of the young
student, as he posted up the Bridges with trim, stockinged legs, in
that city of cocked hats and good Scotch still unadulterated. It
would not cross his mind that he should have a daughter; and the
lamp and oil man, just then beginning, by a not unnatural
metastasis, to bloom into a lighthouse-engineer, should have a
grandson; and that these two, in the fulness of time, should wed;
and some portion of that student himself should survive yet a year
or two longer in the person of their child.
But our ancestral adventures are beyond even the arithmetic of
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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 Prufrock/Other Observations by T. S. Eliot: Sure that across the gulf you reach your hand.
You are invulnerable, you have no Achilles’ heel.
You will go on, and when you have prevailed
You can say: at this point many a one has failed.
But what have I, but what have I, my friend,
To give you, what can you receive from me?
Only the friendship and the sympathy
Of one about to reach her journey’s end.
I shall sit here, serving tea to friends...."
I take my hat: how can I make a cowardly amends
For what she has said to me?
Prufrock/Other Observations |
