| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Princess by Alfred Tennyson: On flowery levels underneath the crag,
Full of all beauty. 'O how sweet' I said
(For I was half-oblivious of my mask)
'To linger here with one that loved us.' 'Yea,'
She answered, 'or with fair philosophies
That lift the fancy; for indeed these fields
Are lovely, lovelier not the Elysian lawns,
Where paced the Demigods of old, and saw
The soft white vapour streak the crownèd towers
Built to the Sun:' then, turning to her maids,
'Pitch our pavilion here upon the sward;
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Running a Thousand Miles for Freedom by William and Ellen Craft: as they are ordered, but frequently compel them
to submit to the greatest indignity. Oh! if there
is any one thing under the wide canopy of heaven,
horrible enough to stir a man's soul, and to make
his very blood boil, it is the thought of his dear
wife, his unprotected sister, or his young and
virtuous daughters, struggling to save themselves
from falling a prey to such demons!
It always appears strange to me that any one
who was not born a slaveholder, and steeped to the
very core in the demoralizing atmosphere of the
Running a Thousand Miles for Freedom |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Tom Sawyer Abroad by Mark Twain: them under me, jumping up at the ladder and snarling
and snapping at each other; and so we went skimming
along over the sand, and these fellers doing what they
could to help us to not forgit the occasion; and then
some other beasts come, without an invite, and they
started a regular riot down there.
We see this plan was a mistake. We couldn't ever
git away from them at this gait, and I couldn't hold on
forever. So Tom took a think, and struck another
idea. That was, to kill a lion with the pepper-box
revolver, and then sail away while the others stopped
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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 Protagoras by Plato: though they are very liberal in their potations. And a company like this
of ours, and men such as we profess to be, do not require the help of
another's voice, or of the poets whom you cannot interrogate about the
meaning of what they are saying; people who cite them declaring, some that
the poet has one meaning, and others that he has another, and the point
which is in dispute can never be decided. This sort of entertainment they
decline, and prefer to talk with one another, and put one another to the
proof in conversation. And these are the models which I desire that you
and I should imitate. Leaving the poets, and keeping to ourselves, let us
try the mettle of one another and make proof of the truth in conversation.
If you have a mind to ask, I am ready to answer; or if you would rather, do
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