| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Collected Articles by Frederick Douglass: person from myself, and in that case it would have been his duty
to arrest me on the instant, and send me back to Baltimore
from the first station. When he left me with the assurance
that I was all right, though much relieved, I realized that
I was still in great danger: I was still in Maryland,
and subject to arrest at any moment. I saw on the train
several persons who would have known me in any other clothes,
and I feared they might recognize me, even in my sailor "rig,"
and report me to the conductor, who would then subject me
to a closer examination, which I knew well would be fatal to me.
Though I was not a murderer fleeing from justice, I felt perhaps
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from A Personal Record by Joseph Conrad: never in fault"--one may admit that there must be some
righteousness in the assent of a whole village. Mad! Mad! He
who kept in pious meditation the ritual vigil-of-arms by the well
of an inn and knelt reverently to be knighted at daybreak by the
fat, sly rogue of a landlord has come very near perfection. He
rides forth, his head encircled by a halo--the patron saint of
all lives spoiled or saved by the irresistible grace of
imagination. But he was not a good citizen.
Perhaps that and nothing else was meant by the well-remembered
exclamation of my tutor.
It was in the jolly year 1873, the very last year in which I have
A Personal Record |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Hamlet by William Shakespeare: That we with wisest sorrow thinke on him,
Together with remembrance of our selues.
Therefore our sometimes Sister, now our Queene,
Th' imperiall Ioyntresse of this warlike State,
Haue we, as 'twere, with a defeated ioy,
With one Auspicious, and one Dropping eye,
With mirth in Funerall, and with Dirge in Marriage,
In equall Scale weighing Delight and Dole
Taken to Wife; nor haue we heerein barr'd
Your better Wisedomes, which haue freely gone
With this affaire along, for all our Thankes.
Hamlet |
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 The Soul of the Far East by Percival Lowell: her head so lovingly to each.
As our past rises in reminiscence with all its oldtime reality, no
less clearly does our future stand out to us in mirage. What we
would be seems as realizable as what we were. Seen by another
beside ourselves, our castles in the air take on something of the
substance of stereoscopic sight. Our airiest fancies seem solid
facts for their reality to her, and gilded by lovelight, they
glitter and sparkle like a true palace of the East. For once all is
possible; nothing lies beyond our reach. And as we talk, and she
listens, we two seem to be floating off into an empyrean of our own
like the summer clouds above our heads, as they sail dreamily on
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