| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from A Hero of Our Time by M.Y. Lermontov: sumptive, and there is a little black mole on her
right cheek. I was struck by the expressiveness
of her face."
"A mole!" I muttered through my teeth.
"Is it possible?"
The doctor looked at me, and, laying his hand
on my heart, said triumphantly:
"You know her!"
My heart was, in fact, beating more violently
than usual.
"It is your turn, now, to triumph," I said.
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Crito by Plato: you may be justified before the princes of the world below. For neither
will you nor any that belong to you be happier or holier or juster in this
life, or happier in another, if you do as Crito bids. Now you depart in
innocence, a sufferer and not a doer of evil; a victim, not of the laws,
but of men. But if you go forth, returning evil for evil, and injury for
injury, breaking the covenants and agreements which you have made with us,
and wronging those whom you ought least of all to wrong, that is to say,
yourself, your friends, your country, and us, we shall be angry with you
while you live, and our brethren, the laws in the world below, will receive
you as an enemy; for they will know that you have done your best to destroy
us. Listen, then, to us and not to Crito.'
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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 My Bondage and My Freedom by Frederick Douglass: the Zion Methodists. Favored with the affection and confidence
of the members of this humble communion, I was soon made a
classleader and a local preacher among them. Many seasons of
peace and joy I experienced among them, the remembrance of which
is still precious, although I could not see it to be my duty to
remain with that body, when I found that it consented to the same
spirit which held my brethren in chains.
In four or five months after reaching New Bedford, there came a
young man to me, with a copy of the _Liberator_, the paper edited
by WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON, and published by ISAAC KNAPP, and
asked me to subscribe for it. I told him I had but just escaped
My Bondage and My Freedom |
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 Under the Red Robe by Stanley Weyman: not ready when Madame comes down, you will suffer, and the cook
too.'
When he was gone on his errand, I looked round. What else was
lacking? The sun shone cheerily on the polished floor; the air,
freshened by the rain which had fallen in the night, entered
freely through the open doorway. A few bees lingering with the
summer hummed outside. The fire crackled bravely; an old hound,
blind and past work, lay warming its hide on the hearth. I could
think of nothing more, and I stood and stood and watched the man
set out the table and spread the cloth.
'For how many, Monsieur?' he asked in a scared tone.
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