| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Collected Articles by Frederick Douglass: its bearer very accurately. Indeed, it called for a man
much darker than myself, and close examination of it would
have caused my arrest at the start.
In order to avoid this fatal scrutiny on the part of railroad
officials, I arranged with Isaac Rolls, a Baltimore hackman,
to bring my baggage to the Philadelphia train just on the moment
of starting, and jumped upon the car myself when the train was in motion.
Had I gone into the station and offered to purchase a ticket,
I should have been instantly and carefully examined, and undoubtedly arrested.
In choosing this plan I considered the jostle of the train, and the natural
haste of the conductor, in a train crowded with passengers, and relied upon
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from A treatise on Good Works by Dr. Martin Luther: where there was no way, no food, no drink, no help. Therefore God
went before them, by day in a bright: cloud, by night in a fiery
pillar, fed them with manna from heaven, and kept their garments
and shoes that they waxed not old, as we read in the Books of
Moses. For this reason we pray: "Thy kingdom come, that Thou rule
us, and not: we ourselves," for there is nothing more perilous
in us than our reason and will. And this is the first and highest
work of God in us and the best training, that we cease from our
works, that we let our reason and will be idle, that we rest and
commend ourselves to God in all things, especially when they seem
to be spiritual and good.
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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 Glasses by Henry James: herself above all she was fixed for ever, rescued from all change
and ransomed from all doubt. Her old certainties, her old vanities
were justified and sanctified, and in the darkness that had closed
upon her one object remained clear. That object, as unfading as a
mosaic mask, was fortunately the loveliest she could possibly look
upon. The greatest blessing of all was of course that Dawling
thought so. Her future was ruled with the straightest line, and so
for that matter was his. There were two facts to which before I
left my friends I gave time to sink into my spirit. One was that
he had changed by some process as effective as Flora's change, had
been simplified somehow into service as she had been simplified
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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 Tristram Shandy by Laurence Sterne: shin-bone)--'Twas a hundred to one-cried my uncle Toby--I thought, quoth my
father, (rubbing his shin) you had known nothing of calculations, brother
Toby. a mere chance, said my uncle Toby.--Then it adds one to the chapter-
-replied my father.
The double success of my father's repartees tickled off the pain of his
shin at once--it was well it so fell out--(chance! again)--or the world to
this day had never known the subject of my father's calculation--to guess
it--there was no chance--What a lucky chapter of chances has this turned
out! for it has saved me the trouble of writing one express, and in truth I
have enough already upon my hands without it.--Have not I promised the
world a chapter of knots? two chapters upon the right and the wrong end of
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