| 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: is the highly instructive disclosure it made of the true source
of danger to republican government. Whatever may be tolerated
in monarchical and despotic governments, no republic is safe
that tolerates a privileged class, or denies to any of its citizens
equal rights and equal means to maintain them. What was theory
before the war has been made fact by the war.
There is cause to be thankful even for rebellion. It is an impressive teacher,
though a stern and terrible one. In both characters it has come to us,
and it was perhaps needed in both. It is an instructor never
a day before its time, for it comes only when all other means
of progress and enlightenment have failed. Whether the oppressed
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge by Ambrose Bierce: feeling was torment. He was conscious of motion.
Encompassed in a luminous cloud, of which he was now merely
the fiery heart, without material substance, he swung
through unthinkable arcs of oscillation, like a vast
pendulum. Then all at once, with terrible suddenness, the
light about him shot upward with the noise of a loud splash;
a frightful roaring was in his ears, and all was cold and
dark. The power of thought was restored; he knew that the
rope had broken and he had fallen into the stream. There was
no additional strangulation; the noose about his neck
was already suffocating him and kept the water from his
An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Reminiscences of Tolstoy by Leo Tolstoy: of poetry one day, and asked my mother who wrote them. She told
me they were written by Pushkin, and Pushkin was a great writer.
I was vexed at my father not being one, too. Then my mother said
that my father was also a well-known writer, and I was very glad
indeed.
At the dinner-table papa sits opposite mama and has his own
round silver spoon. When old Natália Petróvna, who
lives on the floor below with great-aunt Tatyána
Alexándrovna, pours herself out a glass of kvass, he picks
it up and drinks it right off, then says, "Oh, I'm so sorry,
Natália Petróvna; I made a mistake!" We all laugh
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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 Z. Marcas by Honore de Balzac: room on the fifth floor.
On our side of the landing there were but two rooms--ours and a
smaller one, occupied by Z. Marcas, our neighbor. For six months Juste
and I remained in perfect ignorance of the fact. The old woman who
managed the house had indeed told us that the room was inhabited, but
she had added that we should not be disturbed, that the occupant was
exceedingly quiet. In fact, for those six months, we never met our
fellow-lodger, and we never heard a sound in his room, in spite of the
thinness of the partition that divided us--one of those walls of lath
and plaster which are common in Paris houses.
Our room, a little over seven feet high, was hung with a vile cheap
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