| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Margret Howth: A Story of To-day by Rebecca Harding Davis: chime in with the lesson of the hour. I may remark, in passing,
that this course of conduct so disgusted the High Church rector
of the parish, that he not only ignored all new devils, (as Mr.
Carlyle might have called them,) but talked as if the millennium
were un fait accompli, and he had leisure to go and hammer at the
poor dead old troubles of Luther's time. One thing, though,
about Joel: while he was joining in Mr. Clinche's petition for
the "wiping out" of some few thousands, he was using up all the
fragments of the hot day in fixing a stall for a half-dead old
horse he had found by the road-side.
Perhaps, even if the listening angel did not grant the prayer, he
Margret Howth: A Story of To-day |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Phaedo by Plato: very far excels the body. Well, then, says the argument to me, why do you
remain unconvinced?--When you see that the weaker continues in existence
after the man is dead, will you not admit that the more lasting must also
survive during the same period of time? Now I will ask you to consider
whether the objection, which, like Simmias, I will express in a figure, is
of any weight. The analogy which I will adduce is that of an old weaver,
who dies, and after his death somebody says:--He is not dead, he must be
alive;--see, there is the coat which he himself wove and wore, and which
remains whole and undecayed. And then he proceeds to ask of some one who
is incredulous, whether a man lasts longer, or the coat which is in use and
wear; and when he is answered that a man lasts far longer, thinks that he
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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 Passionate Pilgrim by William Shakespeare: Not daring trust the office of mine eyes,
While Philomela sits and sings, I sit and mark,
And wish her lays were tuned like the lark;
For she doth welcome daylight with her ditty,
And drives away dark dismal-dreaming night:
The night so pack'd, I post unto my pretty;
Heart hath his hope, and eyes their wished sight;
Sorrow changed to solace, solace mix'd with sorrow;
For why, she sigh'd and bade me come tomorrow.
Were I with her, the night would post too soon;
But now are minutes added to the hours;
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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 My Bondage and My Freedom by Frederick Douglass: heavens, a set of men who cultivate such an intense dread of
labor as do the slaveholders. The charge of laziness against the
slave is ever on their lips, and is the standing apology for
every species of cruelty and brutality. These men literally
"bind heavy burdens, grievous to be borne, and lay them on men's
shoulders; but they, themselves, will not move them with one of
their fingers."
My kind readers shall have, in the next chapter--what they were
led, perhaps, to expect to find in this--namely: an account of my
partial disenthrallment from the tyranny of Covey, and the marked
change which it brought about.
My Bondage and My Freedom |
