| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Second Inaugural Address by Abraham Lincoln: seeking to dissolve the Union, and divide effects, by negotiation.
Both parties deprecated war; but one of them would make war rather
than let the nation survive; and the other would accept war rather
than let it perish. And the war came.
One-eighth of the whole population were colored slaves, not distributed
generally over the Union, but localized in the Southern part of it.
These slaves constituted a peculiar and powerful interest. All knew
that this interest was, somehow, the cause of the war. To strengthen,
perpetuate, and extend this interest was the object for which the
insurgents would rend the Union, even by war; while the government claimed
no right to do more than to restrict the territorial enlargement of it.
Second Inaugural Address |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Sesame and Lilies by John Ruskin: unless you are deliberately kind to every creature, you will often
be cruel to many. Cruel, partly through want of imagination, (a far
rarer and weaker faculty in women than men,) and yet more, at the
present day, through the subtle encouragement of your selfishness by
the religious doctrine that all which we now suppose to be evil will
be brought to a good end; doctrine practically issuing, not in less
earnest efforts that the immediate unpleasantness may be averted
from ourselves, but in our remaining satisfied in the contemplation
of its ultimate objects, when it is inflicted on others.
It is not likely that the more accurate methods of recent mental
education will now long permit young people to grow up in 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 A Modest Proposal by Jonathan Swift: whereby we can incur no danger in disobliging England. For this
kind of commodity will not bear exportation, and flesh being of
too tender a consistence, to admit a long continuance in salt,
although perhaps I could name a country, which would be glad to
eat up our whole nation without it.
After all, I am not so violently bent upon my own opinion, as to
reject any offer, proposed by wise men, which shall be found
equally innocent, cheap, easy, and effectual. But before
something of that kind shall be advanced in contradiction to my
scheme, and offering a better, I desire the author or authors
will be pleased maturely to consider two points. First, As things
A Modest Proposal |
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 Phaedo by Plato: may deliver herself up again to the thraldom of pleasures and pains, doing
a work only to be undone again, weaving instead of unweaving her Penelope's
web. But she will calm passion, and follow reason, and dwell in the
contemplation of her, beholding the true and divine (which is not matter of
opinion), and thence deriving nourishment. Thus she seeks to live while
she lives, and after death she hopes to go to her own kindred and to that
which is like her, and to be freed from human ills. Never fear, Simmias
and Cebes, that a soul which has been thus nurtured and has had these
pursuits, will at her departure from the body be scattered and blown away
by the winds and be nowhere and nothing.
When Socrates had done speaking, for a considerable time there was silence;
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