| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Moby Dick by Herman Melville: when, as was sometimes the case, these spiritual throes in him heaved
his being up from its base, and a chasm seemed opening in him, from
which forked flames and lightnings shot up, and accursed fiends
beckoned him to leap down among them; when this hell in himself
yawned beneath him, a wild cry would be heard through the ship; and
with glaring eyes Ahab would burst from his state room, as though
escaping from a bed that was on fire. Yet these, perhaps, instead of
being the unsuppressable symptoms of some latent weakness, or fright
at his own resolve, were but the plainest tokens of its intensity.
For, at such times, crazy Ahab, the scheming, unappeasedly steadfast
hunter of the white whale; this Ahab that had gone to his hammock,
Moby Dick |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Essays of Francis Bacon by Francis Bacon: within. For they are the first, that find their own
griefs, though they be the last, that find their
own faults. Certainly men in great fortunes are
strangers to themselves, and while they are in the
puzzle of business, they have no time to tend their
health, either of body or mind. Illi mors gravis
incubat, qui notus nimis omnibus, ignotus moritur
sibi. In place, there is license to do good, and evil;
whereof the latter is a curse: for in evil, the best
condition is not to win; the second, not to can. But
power to do good, is the true and lawful end of
Essays of Francis Bacon |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Collected Articles by Frederick Douglass: the fugitive to send back the papers would imperil his benefactor,
and the discovery of the papers in possession of the wrong man
would imperil both the fugitive and his friend. It was, therefore,
an act of supreme trust on the part of a freeman of color thus to
put in jeopardy his own liberty that another might be free. It was,
however, not unfrequently bravely done, and was seldom discovered.
I was not so fortunate as to resemble any of my free acquaintances
sufficiently to answer the description of their papers.
But I had a friend--a sailor--who owned a sailor's protection,
which answered somewhat the purpose of free papers--describing his person,
and certifying to the fact that he was a free American sailor.
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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 American by Henry James: have old heads and young hearts, or at least young morals;
here they have young heads and very aged hearts, morals the most
grizzled and wrinkled.
"What I envy you is your liberty," observed M. de Bellegarde,
"your wide range, your freedom to come and go, your not having
a lot of people, who take themselves awfully seriously,
expecting something of you. I live," he added with a sigh,
"beneath the eyes of my admirable mother."
"It is your own fault; what is to hinder your ranging?" said Newman.
"There is a delightful simplicity in that remark!
Everything is to hinder me. To begin with, I have not a penny."
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