| 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: 83. Again: -- "Why are mortuary and anniversary masses for the
dead continued, and why does he not return or permit the
withdrawal of the endowments founded on their behalf, since it
is wrong to pray for the redeemed?"
84. Again: -- "What is this new piety of God and the pope,
that for money they allow a man who is impious and their enemy
to buy out of purgatory the pious soul of a friend of God, and
do not rather, because of that pious and beloved soul's own
need, free it for pure love's sake?"
85. Again: -- "Why are the penitential canons long since in
actual fact and through disuse abrogated and dead, now
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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 Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg by Mark Twain: all over the world."
"It SAID publish it."
"That is nothing; it also said do it privately, if you liked.
There, now--is that true, or not?"
"Why, yes--yes, it is true; but when I thought what a stir it would
make, and what a compliment it was to Hadleyburg that a stranger
should trust it so--"
"Oh, certainly, I know all that; but if you had only stopped to
think, you would have seen that you COULDN'T find the right man,
because he is in his grave, and hasn't left chick nor child nor
relation behind him; and as long as the money went to somebody that
The Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from New Arabian Nights by Robert Louis Stevenson: affected something Spanish in his air, and something of the bandit,
with a flavour of Rembrandt at home. In person he was decidedly
small and inclined to be stout; his face was the picture of good
humour; his dark eyes, which were very expressive, told of a kind
heart, a brisk, merry nature, and the most indefatigable spirits.
If he had worn the clothes of the period you would have set him
down for a hitherto undiscovered hybrid between the barber, the
innkeeper, and the affable dispensing chemist. But in the
outrageous bravery of velvet jacket and flapped hat, with trousers
that were more accurately described as fleshings, a white
handkerchief cavalierly knotted at his neck, a shock of Olympian
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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 The Prince by Nicolo Machiavelli: reached Sinigalia; nor should they be permitted to leave until they
came to the duke's quarters, where they should be seized.
The duke afterwards ordered all his horsemen and infantry, of which
there were more than two thousand cavalry and ten thousand footmen, to
assemble by daybreak at the Metauro, a river five miles distant from
Fano, and await him there. He found himself, therefore, on the last
day of December at the Metauro with his men, and having sent a
cavalcade of about two hundred horsemen before him, he then moved
forward the infantry, whom he accompanied with the rest of the men-at-
arms.
Fano and Sinigalia are two cities of La Marca situate on the shore of
The Prince |
