| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Iron Puddler by James J. Davis: landlady was Irish, and her motto was: "If there's any fighting
to be done here I'll do it myself." On the sideboard she kept a
carving knife as big as a cavalry saber. Whenever two men started
a row, she grabbed this carving knife and with a scream like a
panther she lit into them.
"Stop yer fightin' before I hack your hands off!"
The men were in deadly fear of her because they knew she meant
business. The sight of that swinging knife quelled every riot
before it got started. We fellows were like children in that we
only thought of one thing at a time. And when we saw the
landlady's carving knife we forgot whatever else was on our
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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 Contrast by Royall Tyler: with. Besides, it possesses considerable intrinsic merit,
and as an acting play will compare favorably with
many of the English comedies of the period; and
though, perhaps, meager in plot and incident, it is
bright, humorous, and natural; the dialogue is sparkling
with genuine wit; and its satire aimed at the evils and
follies of the time is keen and incisive. The contrast
between the plain and simple honesty of purpose and
breeding of our American home life and the tinseled
though polished hypocrisy and knavery of foreign
fashionable society is finely delineated, and no doubt
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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 United States Declaration of Independence: deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,
That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends,
it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute
new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing
its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect
their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments
long established should not be changed for light and transient causes;
and accordingly all experience hath shown, that mankind are more disposed
to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing
the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and
usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce
United States Declaration of Independence |
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 War and the Future by H. G. Wells: evil in human life was due to the inherent vicious disposition of
the human mind to intensify classification.[*See my "First and
Last Things," Book I. and my "Modern Utopia," Chapter X.] I do
not know how it will strike the reader, but to me this war, this
slaughter of eight or nine million people, is due almost entirely
to this little, almost universal lack of clear-headedness; I
believe that the share of wickedness in making war is quite
secondary to the share of this universal shallow silliness of
outlook. These effigies of emperors and kings and statesmen that
lead men into war, these legends of nationality and glory, would
collapse before our universal derision, if they were not stuffed
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