| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from My Bondage and My Freedom by Frederick Douglass: the slaves. They eat it with avidity, and are more concerned
about the quantity than about the quality. They are far too
scantily provided for, and are worked too steadily, to be much
concerned for the quality of their food. The few minutes allowed
them at dinner time, after partaking of their coarse repast, are
variously spent. Some lie down on the "turning row," and go to
sleep; others draw together, and talk; and others are at work
with needle and thread, mending their tattered garments.
Sometimes you may hear a wild, hoarse laugh arise from a circle,
and often a song. Soon, however, the overseer comes dashing
through the field. _"Tumble up! Tumble up_, and to _work,
My Bondage and My Freedom |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Westward Ho! by Charles Kingsley: and down in twos and threes before the stately house; or looking
down upon the park, with the old oaks, and the deer, and the broad
land-locked river spread out like a lake beneath, all bright in the
glare of the midsummer sun; or listening obsequiously to the two
great ladies who did the honors, Mrs. St. Leger the hostess, and
her sister-in-law, fair Lady Grenville. All chatted, and laughed,
and eyed each other's dresses, and gossiped about each other's
husbands and servants: only Rose Salterne kept apart, and longed to
get into a corner and laugh or cry, she knew not which.
"Our pretty Rose seems sad," said Lady Grenville, coming up to her.
"Cheer up, child! we want you to come and sing to us."
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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 De Profundis by Oscar Wilde: is no truth comparable to sorrow. There are times when sorrow
seems to me to be the only truth. Other things may be illusions of
the eye or the appetite, made to blind the one and cloy the other,
but out of sorrow have the worlds been built, and at the birth of a
child or a star there is pain.
More than this, there is about sorrow an intense, an extraordinary
reality. I have said of myself that I was one who stood in
symbolic relations to the art and culture of my age. There is not
a single wretched man in this wretched place along with me who does
not stand in symbolic relation to the very secret of life. For the
secret of life is suffering. It is what is hidden behind
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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 Fables by Robert Louis Stevenson: III - THE TWO MATCHES.
ONE day there was a traveller in the woods in California, in the
dry season, when the Trades were blowing strong. He had ridden a
long way, and he was tired and hungry, and dismounted from his
horse to smoke a pipe. But when he felt in his pocket he found but
two matches. He struck the first, and it would not light.
"Here is a pretty state of things!" said the traveller. "Dying for
a smoke; only one match left; and that certain to miss fire! Was
there ever a creature so unfortunate? And yet," thought the
traveller, "suppose I light this match, and smoke my pipe, and
shake out the dottle here in the grass - the grass might catch on
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