| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Reminiscences of Tolstoy by Leo Tolstoy: My sister Masha, with whom I once had a conversation on the
subject, was of the same opinion.
In 1909 my father stayed with Mr. Tchertkof at Krekshin, and
there for the first time he wrote a formal will, attested by the
signature of witnesses. How this will came to be written I do not
know, and I do not intend to discuss it. It afterward appeared
that it also was imperfect from a legal point of view, and in
October, 1909, it had all to be done again.
As to the writing of the third we are fully informed by Mr. F.
Strakhof in an article which he published in the St. Petersburg
"Gazette" on November 6, 1911.
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians by Martin Luther: He alone were unable to justify sinners. It is this that I condemn, because it
makes Christ of no effect. It makes you void of Christ so that Christ is not
in you, nor can you be partakers of the knowledge, the spirit, the
fellowship, the liberty, the life, or the achievements of Christ. You are
completely separated from Him, so much so that He has nothing to do
with you any more, or for that matter you with Him." Can anything worse
be said against the Law? If you think Christ and the Law can dwell together
in your heart, you may be sure that Christ dwells not in your heart. For if
Christ is in your heart He neither condemns you, nor does He ever bid
you to trust in your own good works. If you know Christ at all, you know
that good works do not serve unto righteousness, nor evil works unto
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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 Amy Foster by Joseph Conrad: The whispered sounds I caught by bending my ear
to his lips puzzled me utterly. That afternoon the
young ladies from the Rectory (one of them read
Goethe with a dictionary, and the other had strug-
gled with Dante for years), coming to see Miss
Swaffer, tried their German and Italian on him
from the doorway. They retreated, just the least
bit scared by the flood of passionate speech which,
turning on his pallet, he let out at them. They ad-
mitted that the sound was pleasant, soft, musical--
but, in conjunction with his looks perhaps, it was
Amy Foster |
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 New Arabian Nights by Robert Louis Stevenson: he was deplorably drenched below the waist. His hose began to
freeze almost at once. Death from cold and exposure stared him in
the face; he remembered he was of phthisical tendency, and began
coughing tentatively. But the gravity of the danger steadied his
nerves. He stopped a few hundred yards from the door where he had
been so rudely used, and reflected with his finger to his nose. He
could only see one way of getting a lodging, and that was to take
it. He had noticed a house not far away, which looked as if it
might be easily broken into, and thither he betook himself
promptly, entertaining himself on the way with the idea of a room
still hot, with a table still loaded with the remains of supper,
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