| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Madam How and Lady Why by Charles Kingsley: collection of butterflies. You like to arrange them, and those
that are most like nearest to each other, and to compare them.
You must do that with thousands of different kinds of things
before you can read one page of Madam How's Natural History Book
rightly.
But it will take so much time and so much trouble.
God grant that you may not spend more time on worse matters, and
take more trouble over things which will profit you far less. But
so it must be, willy-nilly. You must learn the alphabet if you
mean to read. And you must learn the value of the figures before
you can do a sum. Why, what would you think of any one who sat
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from I Have A Dream by Martin Luther King, Jr.: wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom
by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred.
We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity
and discipline. We must not allow our creative protest to
degenerate into physical violence. Again and again we must rise
to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul
force. The marvelous new militancy which has engulfed the Negro
community must not lead us to distrust of all white people, for
many of our white brothers, as evidenced by their presence here
today, have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with
our destiny and their freedom is inextricably bound to our
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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 My Bondage and My Freedom by Frederick Douglass: but also because I had no means of showing their unsoundness.
But for the responsibility of conducting a public journal, and
the necessity imposed upon me of meeting opposite views from
abolitionists in this state, I should in all probability have
remained as firm in my disunion views as any other disciple of
William Lloyd Garrison.
My new circumstances compelled me to re-think the whole subject,
and to study, with some care, not only the just and proper rules
of legal interpretation, but the origin, design, nature, rights,
powers, and duties of civil government, and also the relations
which human beings sustain to it. By such a course of thought
My Bondage and My Freedom |
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 Walking by Henry David Thoreau: us improve our opportunities, then, before the evil days come.
What is it that makes it so hard sometimes to determine whither
we will walk? I believe that there is a subtle magnetism in
Nature, which, if we unconsciously yield to it, will direct us
aright. It is not indifferent to us which way we walk. There is a
right way; but we are very liable from heedlessness and stupidity
to take the wrong one. We would fain take that walk, never yet
taken by us through this actual world, which is perfectly
symbolical of the path which we love to travel in the interior
and ideal world; and sometimes, no doubt, we find it difficult to
choose our direction, because it does not yet exist distinctly in
Walking |
