| 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: has, in a special way, within his own diocese or parish.
26. The pope does well when he grants remission to souls [in
purgatory], not by the power of the keys (which he does not
possess), but by way of intercession.
27. They preach man who say that so soon as the penny jingles
into the money-box, the soul flies out [of purgatory].
28. It is certain that when the penny jingles into the
money-box, gain and avarice can be increased, but the result
of the intercession of the Church is in the power of God
alone.
29. Who knows whether all the souls in purgatory wish to be
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from First Inaugural Address by Abraham Lincoln: All profess to be content in the Union if all Constitutional rights
can be maintained. Is it true, then, that any right, plainly written
in the Constitution, has been denied? I think not. Happily the human
mind is so constituted that no party can reach to the audacity of doing this.
Think, if you can, of a single instance in which a plainly written provision
of the Constitution has ever been denied. If by the mere force of numbers a
majority should deprive a minority of any clearly written Constitutional right,
it might, in a moral point of view, justify revolution--certainly would if such
a right were a vital one. But such is not our case. All the vital rights of
minorities and of individuals are so plainly assured to them by affirmations
and negations, guaranties and prohibitions, in the Constitution, that
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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 Damnation of Theron Ware by Harold Frederic: to happen, forced themselves upon his mind. The kiss
was a child of the forest. So long as Theron remained
in the camp, the image of the kiss, which was enshrined
in his heart and ministered to by all his thoughts,
continued enveloped in a haze of sylvan mystery,
like a dryad. Suggestions of its beauty and holiness
came to him in the odors of the woodland, at the sight
of wild flowers and water-lilies. When he walked alone
in unfamiliar parts of the forest, he carried about with him
the half-conscious idea of somewhere coming upon a strange,
hidden pool which mortal eye had not seen before--a deep,
The Damnation of Theron Ware |
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 Westward Ho! by Charles Kingsley: must needs marry a tenant's buxom daughter; and Mistress Abishag
Jewell has brought him one fat baby already. So I shall go, back
to Ireland, or with you: but somewhere. I can't abide the thing's
squalling, any more than I can seeing Mistress Abishag sitting in
my poor dear mother's place, and informing me every other day that
she is come of an illustrious house, because she is (or is not)
third cousin seven times removed to my father's old friend, Bishop
Jewell of glorious memory. I had three-parts of a quarrel with the
dear old man the other day; for after one of her peacock-bouts, I
couldn't for the life of me help saying, that as the Bishop had
written an Apology for the people of England, my father had better
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