| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Disputation of the Power and Efficacy of Indulgences by Dr. Martin Luther: no way to be despised, for they are, as I have said, the
declaration of divine remission.
39. It is most difficult, even for the very keenest
theologians, at one and the same time to commend to the people
the abundance of pardons and [the need of] true contrition.
40. True contrition seeks and loves penalties, but liberal
pardons only relax penalties and cause them to be hated, or at
least, furnish an occasion [for hating them].
41. Apostolic pardons are to be preached with caution, lest
the people may falsely think them preferable to other good
works of love.
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Westward Ho! by Charles Kingsley: Amyas, too, sought ghostly council of Sir John, and told him all
which had passed through his mind.
"It was indeed a temptation of Diabolus," said that simple sage;
"for he is by his very name the divider who sets man against man,
and tempts one to care only for oneself, and forget kin and
country, and duty and queen. But you have resisted him, Captain
Leigh, like a true-born Englishman, as you always are, and he has
fled from you. But that is no reason why we should not flee from
him too; and so I think the sooner we are out of this place, and at
work again, the better for all our souls."
To which Amyas most devoutly said, "Amen!" If Ayacanora were 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 Moon-Face and Other Stories by Jack London: "The reagents I injected into its system were harmless," Paul explained. "Yet
they were powerful, and it appears that when death comes they force
practically instantaneous disintegration. Remarkable! Most remarkable! Well,
the only thing is not to die. They do not harm so long as one lives. But I do
wonder who smashed in that dog's head."
Light, however, was thrown upon this when a frightened housemaid brought the
news that Gaffer Bedshaw had that very morning, not more than an hour back,
gone violently insane, and was strapped down at home, in the huntsman's lodge,
where he raved of a battle with a ferocious and gigantic beast that he had
encountered in the Tichlorne pasture. He claimed that the thing, whatever it
was, was invisible, that with his own eyes he had seen that it was invisible;
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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 Walking by Henry David Thoreau: but a conceit that we know something, which robs us of the
advantage of our actual ignorance? What we call knowledge is
often our positive ignorance; ignorance our negative knowledge.
By long years of patient industry and reading of the
newspapers--for what are the libraries of science but files of
newspapers--a man accumulates a myriad facts, lays them up in his
memory, and then when in some spring of his life he saunters
abroad into the Great Fields of thought, he, as it were, goes to
grass like a horse and leaves all his harness behind in the
stable. I would say to the Society for the Diffusion of Useful
Knowledge, sometimes,--Go to grass. You have eaten hay long
Walking |
