| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Barlaam and Ioasaph by St. John of Damascus: Ghost, the giver of life. Believe thou therefore in the Father,
and in the Son, and in the Holy Ghost, the holy and life-giving
Trinity, glorified in three persons and one Godhead, different
indeed in persons and personal properties, but united in
substance; acknowledging one God unbegotten, the Father; and one
begotten Lord, the Son, light of light, very God of very God,
begotten before all worlds; for of the good Father is begotten
the good Son, and of the unbegotten light shone forth the
everlasting light; and from very life came forth the life-giving
spring, and from original might shone forth the might of the Son,
who is the brightness of his glory and the Word in personality,
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from First Inaugural Address by Abraham Lincoln: its own domestic institutions according to
its own judgment exclusively, is essential
to that balance of power on which the perfection
and endurance of our political fabric depend,
and we denounce the lawless invasion by armed
force of the soil of any State or Territory,
no matter under what pretext,
as among the gravest of crimes."
I now reiterate these sentiments; and, in doing so, I only press upon
the public attention the most conclusive evidence of which the case
is susceptible, that the property, peace, and security of no section
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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 The Princess by Alfred Tennyson: Or own one port of sense not flint to prayer,
Give her the child! or if you scorn to lay it,
Yourself, in hands so lately claspt with yours,
Or speak to her, your dearest, her one fault,
The tenderness, not yours, that could not kill,
Give ~me~ it: ~I~ will give it her.
He said:
At first her eye with slow dilation rolled
Dry flame, she listening; after sank and sank
And, into mournful twilight mellowing, dwelt
Full on the child; she took it: 'Pretty bud!
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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 Man against the Sky by Edwin Arlington Robinson: Sings in a man, he may then, if he's able,
Strike unafraid whatever strings he will
Upon the last and wildest of new lyres;
Nor out of his new magic, though it hymn
The shrieks of dungeoned hell, shall he create
A madness or a gloom to shut quite out
A cleaving daylight, and a last great calm
Triumphant over shipwreck and all storms.
He might have given Aristotle creeps,
But surely would have given him his ~katharsis~.
He'll not be going yet. There's too much yet
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