| 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: I expected some objection to this on his part, but he made none.
When, however, we reached New Bedford, he took our baggage,
including three music-books,--two of them collections by Dyer,
and one by Shaw,--and held them until I was able to redeem them
by paying to him the amount due for our rides. This was soon done,
for Mr. Nathan Johnson not only received me kindly and hospitably,
but, on being informed about our baggage, at once loaned me the two
dollars with which to square accounts with the stage-driver.
Mr. and Mrs. Nathan Johnson reached a good old age, and now rest
from their labors. I am under many grateful obligations to them.
They not only "took me in when a stranger" and "fed me when hungry,"
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Alcibiades I by Plato: SOCRATES: And as much as is well?
ALCIBIADES: Just so.
SOCRATES: And as you speak of an excellence or art of the best in
wrestling, and of an excellence in playing the lyre, I wish you would tell
me what this latter is;--the excellence of wrestling I call gymnastic, and
I want to know what you call the other.
ALCIBIADES: I do not understand you.
SOCRATES: Then try to do as I do; for the answer which I gave is
universally right, and when I say right, I mean according to rule.
ALCIBIADES: Yes.
SOCRATES: And was not the art of which I spoke gymnastic?
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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 First Inaugural Address by Abraham Lincoln: A majority held in restraint by constitutional checks and limitations,
and always changing easily with deliberate changes of popular
opinions and sentiments, is the only true sovereign of a free people.
Whoever rejects it does, of necessity, fly to anarchy or to despotism.
Unanimity is impossible; the rule of a minority, as a permanent arrangement,
is wholly inadmissible; so that, rejecting the majority principle,
anarchy or despotism in some form is all that is left.
I do not forget the position, assumed by some, that Constitutional
questions are to be decided by the Supreme Court; nor do I deny
that such decisions must be binding, in any case, upon the parties
to a suit, as to the object of that suit, while they are also entitled
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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 Island Nights' Entertainments by Robert Louis Stevenson: receive a prodigy. As for myself, I stood amazed. The thing was a
common conjuring trick which I have seen performed at home a score
of times; but how was I to convince the villagers of that? I
wished I had learned legerdemain instead of Hebrew, that I might
have paid the fellow out with his own coin. But there I was; I
could not stand there silent, and the best I could find to say was
weak.
"'I will trouble you not to lay hands on me again,' said I.
"'I have no such thought,' said he, 'nor will I deprive you of your
dollar. Here it is,' he said, and flung it at my feet. I am told
it lay where it fell three days."
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