| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from United States Declaration of Independence: The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated
injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment
of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts
be submitted to a candid world.
He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary
for the public good.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate
and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation
till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended,
he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of
United States Declaration of Independence |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The United States Constitution: or Members from two thirds of the States, and a Majority of all the
States shall be necessary to a Choice. In every Case, after the Choice
of the President, the Person having the greatest Number of Votes of
the Electors shall be the Vice President. But if there should remain
two or more who have equal Votes, the Senate shall chuse from them
by Ballot the Vice President.
The Congress may determine the Time of chusing the Electors,
and the Day on which they shall give their Votes; which Day
shall be the same throughout the United States.
No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States,
at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to
The United States Constitution |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Historical Lecturers and Essays by Charles Kingsley: There, upon the very face of the document, stands written the fact
that the sympathy between the faithful Persian and the faithful Jew-
-the two puritans of the Old World, the two haters of lies,
idolatries, superstitions, was actually as intense as it ought to
have been, as it must have been.
Be that as it may, the return of the Jews to Jerusalem preserved for
us the Old Testament, while it restored to them a national centre, a
sacred city, like that of Delphi to the Greeks, Rome to the Romans,
Mecca to the Muslim, loyalty to which prevented their being utterly
absorbed by the more civilised Eastern races among whom they had
been scattered abroad as colonies of captives.
|
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 Plutarch's Lives by A. H. Clough: fleet, and sent a herald to the enemy for leave to carry off the
dead; though by law and custom, he that by a truce craved leave to
carry off the dead, was hereby supposed to give up all claim to the
victory. Nor was it lawful for him that did this to erect a
trophy, for his is the victory who is master of the field, and he
is not master who asks leave, as wanting power to take. But he
chose rather to renounce his victory and his glory, than to let two
citizens lie unburied. He scoured the coast of Laconia all along,
and beat the Lacedaemonians that made head against him. He took
Thyrea, occupied by the Aeginetans, and carried the prisoners to
Athens.
|
