| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Democracy In America, Volume 1 by Alexis de Toqueville: extremely well adapted to the genius of the people and the nature
of the country which it is intended to govern. The American laws
are therefore good, and to them must be attributed a large
portion of the success which attends the government of democracy
in America: but I do not believe them to be the principal cause
of that success; and if they seem to me to have more influence
upon the social happiness of the Americans than the nature of the
country, on the other hand there is reason to believe that their
effect is still inferior to that produced by the manners of the
people.
The Federal laws undoubtedly constitute the most important
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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 Alexandria and her Schools by Charles Kingsley: right of discovery which has been bestowed on us, even as on them;
unless we become such men as they were, and go on to cultivate and
develop the precious heritage which they have bequeathed to us, instead
of hiding their talent in a napkin and burying it in the earth; making
their greatness an excuse for our own littleness, their industry for our
laziness, their faith for our despair; and prating about the old paths,
while we forget that paths were made that men might walk in them, and
not stand still, and try in vain to stop the way.
It may be said, certainly, as an excuse for these Alexandrian Greeks,
that they were a people in a state of old age and decay; and that they
only exhibited the common and natural faults of old age. For as with
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