| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Gettysburg Address by Abraham Lincoln: We have come to dedicate a portion of that field as a final resting place
for those who here gave their lives that this nation might live.
It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.
But, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate. . .we cannot consecrate. . .
we cannot hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead,
who struggled here have consecrated it, far above our poor power
to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember,
what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here.
It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished
work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced.
It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Astoria by Washington Irving: Over these coasting captains, as we have hinted, the veteran
governor exerted some sort of sway, but it was of a peculiar and
characteristic kind; it was the tyranny of the table. They were
obliged to join him in his "prosnics" or carousals, and to drink
"potations pottle deep." His carousals, too, were not of the most
quiet kind, nor were his potations as mild as nectar. "He is
continually," said Mr. Hunt, "giving entertainments by way of
parade, and if you do not drink raw rum, and boiling punch as
strong as sulphur, he will insult you as soon as he gets drunk,
which is very shortly after sitting down to table."
As to any "temperance captain" who stood fast to his faith, and
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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 Venus and Adonis by William Shakespeare: With tears, which, chorus-like, her eyes did rain.
Full gently now she takes him by the hand, 361
A lily prison'd in a gaol of snow,
Or ivory in an alabaster band;
So white a friend engirts so white a foe: 364
This beauteous combat, wilful and unwilling,
Show'd like two silver doves that sit a-billing.
Once more the engine of her thoughts began:
'O fairest mover on this mortal round, 368
Would thou wert as I am, and I a man,
My heart all whole as thine, thy heart my wound;
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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 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle: their first green shoots, and the air was full of the pleasant
smell of the moist earth. To me at least there was a strange
contrast between the sweet promise of the spring and this
sinister quest upon which we were engaged. My companion sat in
the front of the trap, his arms folded, his hat pulled down over
his eyes, and his chin sunk upon his breast, buried in the
deepest thought. Suddenly, however, he started, tapped me on the
shoulder, and pointed over the meadows
"Look there!" said he.
A heavily timbered park stretched up in a gentle slope,
thickening mto a grove at the highest point. From amid the
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes |
