| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from King Henry VI by William Shakespeare: Shall Henry's conquest, Bedford's vigilance,
Your deeds of war, and all our counsel die?
O peers of England, shameful is this league!
Fatal this marriage, cancelling your fame,
Blotting your names from books of memory,
Razing the characters of your renown,
Defacing monuments of conquer'd France,
Undoing all, as all had never been!
CARDINAL.
Nephew, what means this passionate discourse,
This peroration with such circumstance?
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Gorgias by Plato: position, which, according to Polus, Gorgias admitted out of modesty, that
he who would truly be a rhetorician ought to be just and have a knowledge
of justice, has also turned out to be true.
And now, these things being as we have said, let us proceed in the next
place to consider whether you are right in throwing in my teeth that I am
unable to help myself or any of my friends or kinsmen, or to save them in
the extremity of danger, and that I am in the power of another like an
outlaw to whom any one may do what he likes,--he may box my ears, which was
a brave saying of yours; or take away my goods or banish me, or even do his
worst and kill me; a condition which, as you say, is the height of
disgrace. My answer to you is one which has been already often repeated,
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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 On the Duty of Civil Disobedience by Henry David Thoreau: without it. They may be men of a certain experience and
discrimination, and have no doubt invented ingenious and
even useful systems, for which we sincerely thank them;
but all their wit and usefulness lie within certain not very
wide limits. They are wont to forget that the world is not
governed by policy and expediency. Webster never goes behind
government, and so cannot speak with authority about it.
His words are wisdom to those legislators who contemplate no
essential reform in the existing government; but for thinkers,
and those who legislate for all tim, he never once glances
at the subject. I know of those whose serene and wise
On the Duty of Civil Disobedience |
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 Silverado Squatters by Robert Louis Stevenson: he was obviously Scandinavian, and begged him to explain. It
seemed he had learned his English and done nearly all his
sailing in Scotch ships. "Out of Glasgow," said he, "or
Greenock; but that's all the same - they all hail from
Glasgow." And he was so pleased with me for being a Scotsman,
and his adopted compatriot, that he made me a present of a
very beautiful piece of petrifaction - I believe the most
beautiful and portable he had.
Here was a man, at least, who was a Swede, a Scot, and an
American, acknowledging some kind allegiance to three lands.
Mr. Wallace's Scoto-Circassian will not fail to come before
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