| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Profits of Religion by Upton Sinclair: they were massacred or driven out to death by the priestly castes
of the Middle Ages.
The Holy Inquisition
Let us have one glimpse of the conditions in those mediaeval
times, so that we may know what we ourselves have escaped. In the
fifteenth century there was established in Europe the cult of a
three-headed god, whose priests had won lordship over a
continent. They were enormously wealthy, and unthinkably corrupt;
they sold to the rich the license to commit every possible crime,
and they held the poor in ignorance and degradation. Among the
comparatively intelligent and freedom-loving people of Bohemia
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Red Seal by Natalie Sumner Lincoln: took Kent's breath away; and yet, the more he contemplated it, the
more feasible it appeared.
"What's the date on those checks?" demanded Kent.
"Tuesday of this week - the day Jimmie Turnbull died." Clymer
turned them over. "They are drawn payable to cash, and bear no
endorsement, which shows Rochester must have presented them himself."
Harding and Taylor glanced significantly at each other, but neither
spoke. Suddenly Kent pushed back his chair and rose without
ceremony.
"Don't go, Kent." Clymer took up some papers. "There's a matter -"
"It will keep." Kent's mouth was set and determined. "I give you
The Red Seal |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Barlaam and Ioasaph by St. John of Damascus: leaving me to tribulation and distress? And, before I have been
well exercised in the conflicts of the religious life, before I
have learned the wily attacks of the enemy, why expose me to
fight singlehanded against their marshalled host? And for what
purpose but to see me overthrown by their mischievous
machinations, and to see me die, alas! the true spiritual and
eternal death? That is the fate which must befall inexperienced
and cowardly monks. But, I beseech thee, pray the Lord to take
me also together with thee from life. Yea, by the very hope that
thou hast of receiving the reward of thy labour, pray that, after
thy departure, I may not live one day more in the world, nor
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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 A Footnote to History by Robert Louis Stevenson: and six policemen. Always decent, he withdrew at an early hour; by
those that remained, all decency appears to have been forgotten;
high chiefs were seen to dance; and day found the house carpeted
with slumbering grandees, who must be roused, doctored with coffee,
and sent home. As a first chapter in the history of Polynesian
Confederation, it was hardly cheering, and Laupepa remarked to one
of the embassy, with equal dignity and sense: "If you have come
here to teach my people to drink, I wish you had stayed away."
The Germans looked on from the first with natural irritation that a
power of the powerlessness of Hawaii should thus profit by its
undeniable footing in the family of nations, and send embassies,
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