| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Love and Friendship by Jane Austen: at the same time married Lady Dorothea--. His wishes have been
answered.
Philander and Gustavus, after having raised their reputation by
their Performances in the Theatrical Line at Edinburgh, removed to
Covent Garden, where they still exhibit under the assumed names of
LUVIS and QUICK.
Philippa has long paid the Debt of Nature, Her Husband however
still continues to drive the Stage-Coach from Edinburgh to
Sterling:--
Adeiu my Dearest Marianne.
Laura.
Love and Friendship |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from My Bondage and My Freedom by Frederick Douglass: MASTER'S HOME--JARGON OF THE PLANTATION--GUINEA SLAVES--MASTER
DANIEL--FAMILY OF COL. LLOYD--FAMILY OF CAPT. ANTHONY--HIS SOCIAL
POSITION--NOTIONS OF RANK AND STATION.
It is generally supposed that slavery, in the state of Maryland,
exists in its mildest form, and that it is totally divested of
those harsh and terrible peculiarities, which mark and
characterize the slave system, in the southern and south-western
states of the American union. The argument in favor of this
opinion, is the contiguity of the free states, and the exposed
condition of slavery in Maryland to the moral, religious and
humane sentiment of the free states.
My Bondage and My Freedom |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Sesame and Lilies by John Ruskin: extreme degree, and your fingers will moulder from their sockets.
Fatigue yourself, but once, to utter exhaustion, and to the end of
life you shall not recover the former vigour of your frame. Let
heart-sickness pass beyond a certain bitter point, and the heart
loses its life for ever.
Now, the very definition of evil is in this irremediableness. It
means sorrow, or sin, which ends in death; and assuredly, as far as
we know, or can conceive, there are many conditions both of pain and
sin which cannot but so end. Of course we are ignorant and blind
creatures, and we cannot know what seeds of good may be in present
suffering, or present crime; but with what we cannot know we are not
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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 Phaedrus by Plato: question into the light of day, which is: What power has this art of
rhetoric, and when?
PHAEDRUS: A very great power in public meetings.
SOCRATES: It has. But I should like to know whether you have the same
feeling as I have about the rhetoricians? To me there seem to be a great
many holes in their web.
PHAEDRUS: Give an example.
SOCRATES: I will. Suppose a person to come to your friend Eryximachus, or
to his father Acumenus, and to say to him: 'I know how to apply drugs
which shall have either a heating or a cooling effect, and I can give a
vomit and also a purge, and all that sort of thing; and knowing all this,
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