| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Smalcald Articles by Dr. Martin Luther: before God. No man is righteous before Him. And Christ says,
John 16, 8: The Holy Ghost will reprove the world of sin.
This, then, is the thunderbolt of God by which He strikes in a
heap [hurls to the ground] both manifest sinners and false
saints [hypocrites], and suffers no one to be in the right
[declares no one righteous], but drives them all together to
terror and despair. This is the hammer, as Jeremiah says, 23,
29: Is not My Word like a hammer that breaketh the rock in
pieces? This is not activa contritio or manufactured
repentance, but passiva contritio [torture of conscience],
true sorrow of heart, suffering and sensation of death.
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Sesame and Lilies by John Ruskin: group yet. In the midst of this vanity of empty religion--of tragic
contemplation--of wrathful and wretched ambition, and dispute for
dust, there is yet one great group of persons, by whom all these
disputers live--the persons who have determined, or have had it by a
beneficent Providence determined for them, that they will do
something useful; that whatever may be prepared for them hereafter,
or happen to them here, they will, at least, deserve the food that
God gives them by winning it honourably: and that, however fallen
from the purity, or far from the peace, of Eden, they will carry out
the duty of human dominion, though they have lost its felicity; and
dress and keep the wilderness, though they no more can dress or keep
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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 Tales and Fantasies by Robert Louis Stevenson: three individual fortunes, it was whispered - than any of his
associates could ever hope to gain. Apart from his colonial
career, he had been to Greece in a brigantine with four brass
carronades; he had travelled Europe in a chaise and four,
drawing bridle at the palace-doors of German princes; queens
of song and dance had followed him like sheep and paid his
tailor's bills. And to behold him now, seeking small loans
with plaintive condescension, sponging for breakfast on an
art-student of nineteen, a fallen Don Juan who had neglected
to die at the propitious hour, had a colour of romance for
young imaginations. His name and his bright past, seen
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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 Atheist's Mass by Honore de Balzac: the larynx.
"In later life I have met people born to wealth who, never having
wanted for anything, had never even heard this problem in the
rule of three: A young man is to crime as a five-franc piece is
to X.--These gilded idiots say to me, 'Why did you get into debt?
Why did you involve yourself in such onerous obligations?' They
remind me of the princess who, on hearing that the people lacked
bread, said, 'Why do not they buy cakes?' I should like to see
one of these rich men, who complain that I charge too much for an
operation,--yes, I should like to see him alone in Paris without
a sou, without a friend, without credit, and forced to work with
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