| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from King Lear by William Shakespeare: My train are men of choice and rarest parts,
That all particulars of duty know
And in the most exact regard support
The worships of their name.- O most small fault,
How ugly didst thou in Cordelia show!
Which, like an engine, wrench'd my frame of nature
From the fix'd place; drew from my heart all love
And added to the gall. O Lear, Lear, Lear!
Beat at this gate that let thy folly in [Strikes his head.]
And thy dear judgment out! Go, go, my people.
Alb. My lord, I am guiltless, as I am ignorant
King Lear |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Lesson of the Master by Henry James: "The fellow talking to my girl. By Jove, he IS making up to her -
they're going off for another walk."
"Ah is that he - really?" Our friend felt a certain surprise, for
the personage before him seemed to trouble a vision which had been
vague only while not confronted with the reality. As soon as the
reality dawned the mental image, retiring with a sigh, became
substantial enough to suffer a slight wrong. Overt, who had spent
a considerable part of his short life in foreign lands, made now,
but not for the first time, the reflexion that whereas in those
countries he had almost always recognised the artist and the man of
letters by his personal "type," the mould of his face, the
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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: his own wife. Nor is it the commandment only, but also the
creation and ordinance of God, which forces those to marry who
are not excepted by a singular work of God, according to the
text Gen. 2, 18: It is not good that the man should be alone.
Therefore they do not sin who obey this commandment and
ordinance of God.
What objection can be raised to this? Let men extol the
obligation of a vow as much as they list, yet shall they not
bring to pass that the vow annuls the commandment of God. The
Canons teach that the right of the superior is excepted in
every vow; [that vows are not binding against the decision of
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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 Forged Coupon by Leo Tolstoy: feminine, in keeping with his serious countenance.
When, after some weeks of captivity his beard
had grown again, he seemed to have got rid of
all that was not his true self, the borrowed face
which his soldiering life had given him, and to
have become, as before, a peasant and a man of
the people. In the eyes of the other prisoners
Plato was just a common soldier, whom they
chaffed at times and sent on all manner of er-
rands; but to Pierre he remained ever after the
personification of simplicity and truth, such as he
The Forged Coupon |
