| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Memorabilia by Xenophon: tormented by an evil spirit?[10]
[7] {eis as eirktas}. The penetralia.
[8] Or, "he knows the risks he runs of suffering those penalties with
which the law threatens his crime should he fall into the snare,
and being caught, be mutilated."
[9] Or, "leap headlong into the jaws of danger."
[10] {kakodaimonontos}.
Ar. So it strikes me.
Soc. And does it not strike you as a sign of strange indifference
that, whereas the greater number of the indispensable affairs of men,
as for instance, those of war and agriculture, and more than half the
The Memorabilia |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Tom Sawyer, Detective by Mark Twain: Bruce Dunlap, had most worried the life and sense out of
Uncle Silas till at last he plumb lost his mind and hit
this other blatherskite, his brother, with a club, I reckon
he seen his chance. Jubiter broke for the woods to hide,
and I reckon the game was for him to slide out, in the night,
and leave the country. Then Brace would make everybody
believe Uncle Silas killed him and hid his body somers;
and that would ruin Uncle Silas and drive HIM out of the
country--hang him, maybe; I dunno. But when they found
their dead brother in the sycamores without knowing him,
because he was so battered up, they see they had a better thing;
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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 Augsburg Confession by Philip Melanchthon: use them. Wherefore we must so use the Sacraments that faith
be added to believe the promises which are offered and set
forth through the Sacraments.
They therefore condemn those who teach that the Sacraments
justify by the outward act, and who do not teach that, in the
use of the Sacraments, faith which believes that sins are
forgiven, is required.
Article XIV: Of Ecclesiastical Order.
Of Ecclesiastical Order they teach that no one should publicly
teach in the Church or administer the Sacraments unless he be
regularly called.
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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 Facino Cane by Honore de Balzac: have come to a stop at the sight of him.
Picture to yourself a plaster mask of Dante in the red lamplight, with
a forest of silver-white hair above the brows. Blindness intensified
the expression of bitterness and sorrow in that grand face of his; the
dead eyes were lighted up, as it were, by a thought within that broke
forth like a burning flame, lit by one sole insatiable desire, written
large in vigorous characters upon an arching brow scored across with
as many lines as an old stone wall.
The old man was playing at random, without the slightest regard for
time or tune. His fingers traveled mechanically over the worn keys of
his instrument; he did not trouble himself over a false note now and
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