| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass: An American Slave by Frederick Douglass: deal of harm. It would make him discontented and
unhappy." These words sank deep into my heart,
stirred up sentiments within that lay slumbering,
and called into existence an entirely new train of
thought. It was a new and special revelation, ex-
plaining dark and mysterious things, with which my
youthful understanding had struggled, but struggled
in vain. I now understood what had been to me a
most perplexing difficulty--to wit, the white man's
power to enslave the black man. It was a grand
achievement, and I prized it highly. From that mo-
The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass: An American Slave |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne: Cape Vierges. But Commander Farragut would not take a tortuous passage,
but doubled Cape Horn.
The ship's crew agreed with him. And certainly it was possible
that they might meet the narwhal in this narrow pass.
Many of the sailors affirmed that the monster could not pass there,
"that he was too big for that!"
The 6th of July, about three o'clock in the afternoon, the Abraham Lincoln,
at fifteen miles to the south, doubled the solitary island,
this lost rock at the extremity of the American continent, to which
some Dutch sailors gave the name of their native town, Cape Horn.
The course was taken towards the north-west, and the next day the screw
20,000 Leagues Under the Sea |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Poor and Proud by Oliver Optic: gave her courage to continue her trying labors. She had worked a
portion of the mass into candy--clear, light-colored, inviting
candy. Columbus felt no prouder of his achievement when he had
crossed the Atlantic, or, Napoleon when he had crossed the Alps.
She danced for joy as she gazed upon the clear, straight sticks
of candy, as they were arranged in the pan. It was a great
conquest for her; but at what a sacrifice it had been won! Her
little hands, unused to such hard work, were blistered in a dozen
places, and smarted as though they had been scalded with boiling
water. She showed them to her mother, who begged her not to do
any more; but she had too much enthusiasm to be deterred by the
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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 Scenes from a Courtesan's Life by Honore de Balzac: debtor for certain allowances that must be paid for.
Contenson, you must know, was a whole poem--a Paris poem. Merely to
see him would have been enough to tell you that Beaumarchais' Figaro,
Moliere's Mascarille, Marivaux's Frontin, and Dancourt's Lafleur--
those great representatives of audacious swindling, of cunning driven
to bay, of stratagem rising again from the ends of its broken wires--
were all quite second-rate by comparison with this giant of cleverness
and meanness. When in Paris you find a real type, he is no longer a
man, he is a spectacle; no longer a factor in life, but a whole life,
many lives.
Bake a plaster cast four times in a furnace, and you get a sort of
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