| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Common Sense by Thomas Paine: of the multitude is left at random, and seeing no fixed object before
them, they pursue such as fancy or opinion starts. Nothing is criminal;
there is no such thing as treason; wherefore, every one thinks himself
at liberty to act as he pleases. The Tories dared not have assembled
offensively, had they known that their lives, by that act, were forfeited
to the laws of the state. A line of distinction should be drawn, between,
English soldiers taken in battle, and inhabitants of America taken in arms.
The first are prisoners, but the latter traitors.
The one forfeits his liberty, the other his head.
Notwithstanding our wisdom, there is a visible feebleness in some
of our proceedings which gives encouragement to dissensions.
Common Sense |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Reason Discourse by Rene Descartes: we did not know that all which we possess of real and true proceeds from a
Perfect and Infinite Being, however clear and distinct our ideas might be,
we should have no ground on that account for the assurance that they possessed
the perfection of being true.
But after the knowledge of God and of the soul has rendered us certain of
this rule, we can easily understand that the truth of the thoughts we
experience when awake, ought not in the slightest degree to be called in
question on account of the illusions of our dreams. For if it happened
that an individual, even when asleep, had some very distinct idea, as, for
example, if a geometer should discover some new demonstration, the
circumstance of his being asleep would not militate against its truth; and
Reason Discourse |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Lesson of the Master by Henry James: to the limitations of a little miss. She came and went with no
dragged duenna, she received people alone, and, though she was
totally without hardness, the question of protection or patronage
had no relevancy in regard to her. She gave such an impression of
the clear and the noble combined with the easy and the natural that
in spite of her eminent modern situation she suggested no sort of
sister-hood with the "fast" girl. Modern she was indeed, and made
Paul Overt, who loved old colour, the golden glaze of time, think
with some alarm of the muddled palette of the future. He couldn't
get used to her interest in the arts he cared for; it seemed too
good to be real - it was so unlikely an adventure to tumble into
|
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 Second Inaugural Address by Abraham Lincoln: 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.
Neither party expected for the war the magnitude or the duration
which it has already attained. Neither anticipated that the cause
of the conflict might cease with, or even before, the conflict itself
should cease. Each looked for an easier triumph, and a result less
Second Inaugural Address |
