| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Massimilla Doni by Honore de Balzac: the gloomy tones of music, of all that is saddest on the musical
palette! What creepy darkness! what a mist! Is not your very spirit in
mourning? Are you not convinced of the reality of the blackness that
lies over the land? Do you not feel that Nature is wrapped in the
deepest shades? There are no palm-trees, no Egyptian palaces, no
landscape. And what a healing to your soul will the deeply religious
strain be of the heaven-sent Healer who will stay this cruel plague!
How skilfully is everything wrought up to end in that glorious
invocation of Moses to God.
"By a learned elaboration, which Capraja could explain to you, this
appeal to heaven is accompanied by brass instruments only; it is that
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Second Inaugural Address by Abraham Lincoln: 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
than let the nation survive; and the other would accept war rather
than let it perish. And the war came.
One-eighth of the whole population were colored slaves, not distributed
Second Inaugural Address |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Jungle Tales of Tarzan by Edgar Rice Burroughs: more loudly than before.
Seizing a blazing branch the man cast it straight
into the face of the lion. There was an angry roar,
followed by a swift charge. With a single bound
the savage beast cleared the boma wall as, with almost
equal agility, the warrior cleared it upon the opposite
side and, chancing the dangers lurking in the darkness,
bolted for the nearest tree.
Numa was out of the boma almost as soon as he was inside it;
but as he went back over the low thorn wall, he took
a screaming negro with him. Dragging his victim along
The Jungle Tales of Tarzan |
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 Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe: disagreeable being, according to her account, quite sufficient to
close the scene, and put an end to all her earthly trials at once.
Tom, therefore, in his well-brushed broadcloth suit, smooth beaver,
glossy boots, faultless wristbands and collar, with his grave,
good-natured black face, looked respectable enough to be a
Bishop of Carthage, as men of his color were, in other ages.
Then, too, he was in a beautiful place, a consideration to
which his sensitive race was never indifferent; and he did enjoy
with a quiet joy the birds, the flowers, the fountains, the perfume,
and light and beauty of the court, the silken hangings, and pictures,
and lustres, and statuettes, and gilding, that made the parlors
Uncle Tom's Cabin |
