| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Elizabeth and her German Garden by Marie Annette Beauchamp: They herd together like animals and do the work of animals;
but in spite of the armed overseer, the dirt and the rags,
the meals of potatoes washed down by weak vinegar and water,
I am beginning to believe that they would strongly object
to soap, I am sure they would not wear new clothes, and I
hear them coming home from their work at dusk singing.
They are like little children or animals in their utter inability
to grasp the idea of a future; and after all, if you work all day
in God's sunshine, when evening comes you are pleasantly tired and
ready for rest and not much inclined to find fault with your lot.
I have not yet persuaded myself, however, that the women are happy.
Elizabeth and her German Garden |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass: An American Slave by Frederick Douglass: Plummer. Mr. Plummer was a miserable drunkard,
a profane swearer, and a savage monster. He always
went armed with a cowskin and a heavy cudgel. I
have known him to cut and slash the women's heads
so horribly, that even master would be enraged at
his cruelty, and would threaten to whip him if he
did not mind himself. Master, however, was not a
humane slaveholder. It required extraordinary bar-
barity on the part of an overseer to affect him. He
was a cruel man, hardened by a long life of slave-
holding. He would at times seem to take great pleas-
The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass: An American Slave |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Pathology of Lying, Etc. by William and Mary Healy: trial and error was shown, but for his age the performance on
this type of test was poor. On our ``Puzzle-Box,'' which calls
for the analysis of a concrete situation, a test that is done by
boys of his age nearly always in four minutes or less, Adolf
failed in ten minutes. He began in his typically aggressive
fashion, but kept trying to solve the difficulty by the
repetition of obviously futile movements. On a ``Learning
Test,'' where numerals are associated in meaningless relation
with symbols, Adolf did the work promptly and with much
self-confidence, but made a thoroughly irrational error, inasmuch
as he associated the same numeral with two different symbols--and
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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 Passionate Pilgrim by William Shakespeare: He rose and ran away; ah, fool too froward!
V.
If love make me forsworn, how shall I swear to love?
O never faith could hold, if not to beauty vow'd:
Though to myself forsworn, to thee I'll constant prove;
Those thoughts, to me like oaks, to thee like osiers bow'd.
Study his bias leaves, and make his book thine eyes,
Where all those pleasures live that art can comprehend.
If knowledge be the mark, to know thee shall suffice;
Well learned is that tongue that well can thee commend;
All ignorant that soul that sees thee without wonder;
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