| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Faraday as a Discoverer by John Tyndall: which did not permit it to retreat. If in his warm moments he
formed a resolution, in his cool ones he made that resolution good.
Thus his fire was that of a solid combustible, not that of a gas,
which blazes suddenly, and dies as suddenly away.
And here I must claim your tolerance for the limits by which I am
confined. No materials for a life of Faraday are in my hands, and
what I have now to say has arisen almost wholly out of our close
personal relationship.
Letters of his, covering a period of sixteen years, are before me,
each one of which contains some characteristic utterance;--strong,
yet delicate in counsel, joyful in encouragement, and warm in
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Moby Dick by Herman Melville: Now, as the harem of whales is called by the fishermen a school, so
is the lord and master of that school technically known as the
schoolmaster. It is therefore not in strict character, however
admirably satirical, that after going to school himself, he should
then go abroad inculcating not what he learned there, but the folly
of it. His title, schoolmaster, would very naturally seem derived
from the name bestowed upon the harem itself, but some have surmised
that the man who first thus entitled this sort of Ottoman whale, must
have read the memoirs of Vidocq, and informed himself what sort of a
country-schoolmaster that famous Frenchman was in his younger days,
and what was the nature of those occult lessons he inculcated into
Moby Dick |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Ivanhoe by Walter Scott: have witnessed these unhappy doings, that we may
judge of the sum and bearing thereof; and judge
whether our justice may be satisfied with the punishment
of this infidel woman, or if we must go
on, with a bleeding heart, to the further proceeding
against our brother.''
Several witnesses were called upon to prove the
risks to which Bois-Guilbert exposed himself in
endeavouring to save Rebecca from the blazing
castle, and his neglect of his personal defence in
attending to her safety. The men gave these details
Ivanhoe |
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 Pivot of Civilization by Margaret Sanger: procreation.
I have touched upon these various aspects of the complex problem of
the feeble-minded, and the menace of the moron to human society, not
merely for the purpose of reiterating that it is one of the greatest
and most difficult social problems of modern times, demanding an
immediate, stern and definite policy, but because it illustrates the
actual harvest of reliance upon traditional morality, upon the
biblical injunction to increase and multiply, a policy still taught by
politician, priest and militarist. Motherhood has been held
universally sacred; yet, as Bouchacourt pointed out, ``to-day, the
dregs of the human species, the blind, the deaf-mute, the degenerate,
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