| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Gettysburg Address by Abraham Lincoln: of his assassination.
Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, given November 19, 1863
on the battlefield near Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, USA
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Four score and seven years ago, our fathers brought forth
upon this continent a new nation: conceived in liberty, and
dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
Now we are engaged in a great civil war. . .testing whether
that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated. . .
can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war.
We have come to dedicate a portion of that field as a final resting place
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Madam How and Lady Why by Charles Kingsley: all ran for their lives. Some of the slaves tried to help the
Admiral upon his legs; but he sank down again overpowered with the
brimstone fumes, and so was left behind. When they came back
again, there he lay dead, but with his clothes in order and his
face as quiet as if he had been only sleeping. And that was the
end of a brave and learned man--a martyr to duty and to the love
of science.
But what was going on in the meantime? Under clouds of ashes,
cinders, mud, lava, three of those happy cities were buried at
once--Herculaneum, Pompeii, Stabiae. They were buried just as the
people had fled from them, leaving the furniture and the
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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 Several Works by Edgar Allan Poe: But these other apartments were densely crowded, and in them
beat feverishly the heart of life. And the revel went whirlingly
on, until at length there commenced the sounding of midnight upon
the clock. And then the music ceased, as I have told; and the
evolutions of the waltzers were quieted; and there was an uneasy
cessation of all things as before. But now there were twelve
strokes to be sounded by the bell of the clock; and thus it
happened, perhaps, that more of thought crept, with more of time,
into the meditations of the thoughtful among those who revelled.
And thus too, it happened, perhaps, that before the last echoes of
the last chime had utterly sunk into silence, there were many
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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 The Large Catechism by Dr. Martin Luther: is in full swing and force to the greatest extent, where one openly
defrauds another with bad merchandise, false measures, weights, coins,
and by nimbleness and queer finances or dexterous tricks takes
advantage of him; likewise, when one overcharges a person in a trade
and wantonly drives a hard bargain, skins and distresses him. And who
can recount or think of all these things? To sum up, this is the
commonest craft and the largest guild on earth, and if we regard the
world throughout all conditions of life, it is nothing else than a
vast, wide stall, full of great thieves.
Therefore they are also called swivel-chair robbers, land- and
highway-robbers, not pick-locks and sneak-thieves who snatch away the
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