| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Koran: amongst you takes them for patrons these are the unjust.
Say, 'If your fathers, and your sons, and your brethren, and your
wives, and your clansmen, and the wealth which ye have gained, and the
merchandise which ye fear may be slack, and the dwellings which ye
love are dearer to you than God and His Apostle, and than fighting
strenuously in His way,- then wait awhile, until God brings His
bidding, for God guides not a people who work abomination!'
God has helped you in many a place, and on the day of 'Honein when
ye were so pleased with your numbers; but it did not serve you at all,
and the road grew too strait for you, where it had been broad; and
then ye turned your backs retreating; then God sent down His
The Koran |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Collected Articles by Frederick Douglass: as much at home in Carolina as elsewhere in the Republic.
No Chinese wall can now be tolerated. The South must be opened
to the light of law and liberty, and this session of Congress
is relied upon to accomplish this important work.
The plain, common-sense way of doing this work, as intimated
at the beginning, is simply to establish in the South one law,
one government, one administration of justice, one condition
to the exercise of the elective franchise, for men of all races
and colors alike. This great measure is sought as earnestly
by loyal white men as by loyal blacks, and is needed alike by both.
Let sound political prescience but take the place of an
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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 Hiero by Xenophon: [18] Or, "and to curtail these would seem to be self-slaughter."
Or, to put it differently, why should any one expend compassion on a
man, as if he were a beggar, who has it in his power to satisfy by
just and honest means his every need?[19] Surely it would be more
appropriate to call that man a wretched starveling beggar rather, who
through lack of means is driven to live by ugly shifts and base
contrivances.
[19] i.e. "to expend compassion on a man who, etc., were surely a
pathetic fallacy." Al. "Is not the man who has it in his power,
etc., far above being pitied?"
Now it is your tyrant who is perpetually driven to iniquitous
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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 Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte: the tideless sea of the south."
I had coasted along the lower wall of the orchard--turned its angle:
there was a gate just there, opening into the meadow, between two
stone pillars crowned by stone balls. From behind one pillar I
could peep round quietly at the full front of the mansion. I
advanced my head with precaution, desirous to ascertain if any
bedroom window-blinds were yet drawn up: battlements, windows, long
front--all from this sheltered station were at my command.
The crows sailing overhead perhaps watched me while I took this
survey. I wonder what they thought. They must have considered I
was very careful and timid at first, and that gradually I grew very
Jane Eyre |
