| 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 Gobseck by Honore de Balzac: they produced a change in my opinions, but in my conduct (as somebody
said, I can't recollect his name), in my conduct--never!--Well, well;
these good priests and your Mirabeaus and Vergniauds and the rest of
them, are mere stammering beginners compared with these orators of
mine.
" 'Often it is some girl in love, some gray-headed merchant on the
verge of bankruptcy, some mother with a son's wrong-doing to conceal,
some starving artist, some great man whose influence is on the wane,
and, for lack of money, is like to lose the fruit of all his labors--
the power of their pleading has made me shudder. Sublime actors such
as these play for me, for an audience of one, and they cannot deceive
Gobseck |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath by H. P. Lovecraft: marked his course. The sun rose higher over gentle slopes of grove
and lawn, and heightened the colours of the thousand flowers that
starred each knoll and dangle. A blessed haze lies upon all this
region, wherein is held a little more of the sunlight than other
places hold, and a little more of the summer's humming music of
birds and bees; so that men walk through it as through a faery
place, and feel greater joy and wonder than they ever afterward
remember.
By noon Carter reached the jasper terraces of Kiran
which slope down to the river's edge and bear that temple of loveliness
wherein the King of Ilek-Vad comes from his far realm on the twilight
The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath |
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 Democracy In America, Volume 2 by Alexis de Toqueville: and, if I may use the expression, scattered on every side. Here
then is a motley multitude, whose intellectual wants are to be
supplied. These new votaries of the pleasures of the mind have
not all received the same education; they do not possess the same
degree of culture as their fathers, nor any resemblance to them -
nay, they perpetually differ from themselves, for they live in a
state of incessant change of place, feelings, and fortunes. The
mind of each member of the community is therefore unattached to
that of his fellow-citizens by tradition or by common habits; and
they have never had the power, the inclination, nor the time to
concert together. It is, however, from the bosom of this
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