| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Give Me Liberty Or Give Me Death by Patrick Henry: if we mean to preserve inviolate those inestimable privileges for which
we have been so long contending--if we mean not basely to abandon the noble
struggle in which we have been so long engaged, and which we have pledged
ourselves never to abandon until the glorious object of our contest
shall be obtained--we must fight! I repeat it, sir, we must fight!
An appeal to arms and to the God of hosts is all that is left us!
They tell us, sir, that we are weak; unable to cope with so formidable
an adversary. But when shall we be stronger? Will it be the next week,
or the next year? Will it be when we are totally disarmed, and when a British
guard shall be stationed in every house? Shall we gather strength but
irresolution and inaction? Shall we acquire the means of effectual resistance
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Montezuma's Daughter by H. Rider Haggard: with him, and hollow a deep grave beneath the tree. There I laid
them, and there I left them to sleep for ever in its melancholy
shadow, and thus for the last time I saw Guatemoc my brother, whom
I came from far to save and found made ready for burial by the
Spaniard.
Then I turned my face homewards, for now Anahuac had no king to
rescue, but it chanced that before I went I caught a Tlascalan who
could speak Spanish, and who had deserted from the army of Cortes
because of the hardships that he suffered in their toilsome march.
This man was present at the murder of Guatemoc and his companions,
and heard the Emperor's last words. It seems that some knave had
Montezuma's Daughter |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Hiero by Xenophon: other.
And further, even a tyrant cannot but be something of a patriot--a
lover of that state, without which he can neither hope for safety nor
prosperity. On the other hand, his tyrrany, the exigencies of despotic
rule, compel him to incriminate his fatherland.[5] To train his
citizens to soldiery, to render them brave warriors, and well armed,
confers no pleasure on him; rather he will take delight to make his
foreigners more formidable than those to whom the state belongs, and
these foreigners he will depend on as his body-guard.
[5] Or, "depreciate the land which gave him birth." Holden cf.
"Cyrop." VII. ii. 22. See Sturz, s.v.
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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 Girl with the Golden Eyes by Honore de Balzac: fashion without a settled income, and were devising an end for him,
Henri's coachman came to seek his master at Paul's house, and
presented to him a mysterious personage who insisted on speaking
himself with his master.
This individual was a mulatto, who would assuredly have given Talma a
model for the part of Othello, if he had come across him. Never did
any African face better express the grand vengefulness, the ready
suspicion, the promptitude in the execution of a thought, the strength
of the Moor, and his childish lack of reflection. His black eyes had
the fixity of the eyes of a bird of prey, and they were framed, like a
vulture's, by a bluish membrane devoid of lashes. His forehead, low
The Girl with the Golden Eyes |
