| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson:
Treasure Island |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from I Have A Dream by Martin Luther King, Jr.: Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast
ocean of material prosperity. One hundred years later, the Negro
is still languishing in the corners of American society and finds
himself an exile in his own land. So we have come here today to
dramatize an appalling condition.
In a sense we have come to our nation's capital to cash a check.
When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words
of the Constitution and the declaration of Independence, they
were signing a promissory note to which every American was to
fall heir. This note was a promise that all men would be
guaranteed the inalienable rights of life, liberty, and 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 The Lily of the Valley by Honore de Balzac: be living.
Without knowing why, my eyes reverted ever to that white spot, to the
woman who shone in that garden as the bell of a convolvulus shines
amid the underbrush, and wilts if touched. Moved to the soul, I
descended the slope and soon saw a village, which the superabounding
poetry that filled my heart made me fancy without an equal. Imagine
three mills placed among islands of graceful outline crowned with
groves of trees and rising from a field of water,--for what other name
can I give to that aquatic vegetation, so verdant, so finely colored,
which carpeted the river, rose above its surface and undulated upon
it, yielding to its caprices and swaying to the turmoil of the water
The Lily of the Valley |
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 The Firm of Nucingen by Honore de Balzac: that is to say, not for his blossoming youth, nor for his wit, nor for
his figure, but spontaneously, and not even merely in return for his
own love; a young man, I say, who has found love in the abstract, to
quote Royer-Collard, might yet very possibly find never a farthing in
the purse which She, loving and beloved, embroidered for him; he might
owe rent to his landlord; he might be unable to pay the bootmaker
before mentioned; his very tailor, like France herself, might at last
show signs of disaffection. In short, he might have love and yet be
poor. And poverty spoils a young man's happiness, unless he holds our
transcendental views of the fusion of interests. I know nothing more
wearing than happiness within combined with adversity without. It is
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