| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from I Have A Dream by Martin Luther King, Jr.: it was required to post a copyright notice on printed copies to
be distributed, and this speech was distributed without such an
extra (C) Copyright notice as was then required in the US. The
US revised this law in 1989, an no longer requires such notice.
#STARTMARK#
I have a Dream
by Martin Luther King, Jr.
Delivered on the steps at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington
D.C. on August 28, 1963
Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow
we stand signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Songs of Innocence and Experience by William Blake: While the beetle goes his round:
Follow now the beetle's hum;
Little wanderer, hie thee home!'
ON ANOTHER'S SORROW
Can I see another's woe,
And not be in sorrow too?
Can I see another's grief,
And not seek for kind relief?
Can I see a falling tear,
And not feel my sorrow's share?
Can a father see his child
Songs of Innocence and Experience |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Woman and Labour by Olive Schreiner: conducted with a battle-axe or sword and hand to hand, would now little or
at all affect her. If intent on training for war, she might acquire the
skill for guiding a Maxim or shooting down a foe with a Lee-Metford at four
thousand yards as ably as any male; and undoubtedly, it has not been only
the peasant girl of France, who has carried latent and hid within her
person the gifts that make the supreme general. If our European nations
should continue in their present semi-civilised condition, which makes war
possible, for a few generations longer, it is highly probable that as
financiers, as managers of the commissariat department, as inspectors of
provisions and clothing for the army, women will play a very leading part;
and that the nation which is the first to employ its women so may be placed
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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 Euthydemus by Plato: newly arrived from a sea-voyage, bearing down upon him from the left,
opening his mouth and biting. When the monster was growing troublesome he
called Iolaus, his nephew, to his help, who ably succoured him; but if my
Iolaus, who is my brother Patrocles (the statuary), were to come, he would
only make a bad business worse.
And now that you have delivered yourself of this strain, said Dionysodorus,
will you inform me whether Iolaus was the nephew of Heracles any more than
he is yours?
I suppose that I had best answer you, Dionysodorus, I said, for you will
insist on asking--that I pretty well know--out of envy, in order to prevent
me from learning the wisdom of Euthydemus.
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