| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Boys' Life of Abraham Lincoln by Helen Nicolay: gifted by nature. His wit might be mischievous, but it was never
malicious, and his nonsense was never intended to wound or to
hurt the feelings. It is told of him that he added to his fund of
jokes and stories humorous imitations of the sermons of eccentric
preachers.
Very likely too much is made of all these boyish pranks. He grew
up very like his fellows. In only one particular did he differ
greatly from the frontier boys around him. He never took any
pleasure in hunting. Almost every youth of the backwoods early
became an excellent shot and a confirmed sportsman. The woods
still swarmed with game, and every cabin depended largely upon
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from 1492 by Mary Johntson: but of this great land-mass before us which he would have
rise to Equator and all Wonder. And he talked also of some
water passage, some strait lying to the westward, by which
we might sail between lands and islands to the further Indian
Ocean, and so across to the Sea of Araby, and then
around Africa by Good Hope and then northward, northward,
to Spain, coming into Cadiz with banners, having
sailed around the world!
He talked, and all the time his pain ate him, and he must
cover eyes to keep the sword-light out.
In middle August we turned northward from our New
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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 The Iron Puddler by James J. Davis: appealed to the policeman who found them that he had made
application to adopt the boy and was about to take him to his own
home.
After finding the children, mother stood on Broadway and,
gazing at the fine buildings and the good clothes that all
classes wore in America, she felt her heart swell with hope. And
she said aloud: "This is the place for my boys."
Every one had treated her with kindness. A fellow countryman
had lent her money to pay the hotel bill, telling her she could
pay it back after she had joined her husband. And so we had
passed through the gateway of the New World as thousands of other
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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 Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe: their great comfort, were pretty large; being their long-boat, and
a great shallop, besides a small skiff, which was of no great
service to them, other than to get some fresh water and provisions
into her, after they had secured their lives from the fire. They
had, indeed, small hopes of their lives by getting into these boats
at that distance from any land; only, as they said, that they thus
escaped from the fire, and there was a possibility that some ship
might happen to be at sea, and might take them in. They had sails,
oars, and a compass; and had as much provision and water as, with
sparing it so as to be next door to starving, might support them
about twelve days, in which, if they had no bad weather and no
Robinson Crusoe |
