| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne: "Good!" said Ned Land, bursting out laughing.
"He is quite right," I said. "I have heard of this picture;
but the subject represented is taken from a legend, and you know
what to think of legends in the matter of natural history.
Besides, when it is a question of monsters, the imagination
is apt to run wild. Not only is it supposed that these poulps
can draw down vessels, but a certain Olaus Magnus speaks of an
octopus a mile long that is more like an island than an animal.
It is also said that the Bishop of Nidros was building
an altar on an immense rock. Mass finished, the rock began
to walk, and returned to the sea. The rock was a poulp.
20,000 Leagues Under the Sea |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from An Open Letter on Translating by Dr. Martin Luther: Christ's death and resurrection. Knowing that they cannot be
saved by their good works of the law, how much more will they
realize that they shall not be saved by bad works, or without the
law! Therefore, it does not follow that because good works do not
help, bad works will; just as it does not follow that because the
sun cannot help a blind person see, the night and darkness must
help him see.
It astounds me that one can be offended by something as obvious as
this! Just tell me, is Christ's death and resurrection our work,
what we do, or not? It is obviously not our work, nor is it the
work of the law. Now it is Christ's death and resurrection alone
|
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Moll Flanders by Daniel Defoe: her hands, and crying out that she was undone, that she
believed there was a curse from heaven upon her, that she
should be damned, that she had been the destruction of all her
friends, that she had brought such a one, and such a one, and
such a one to the gallows; and there she reckoned up ten or
eleven people, some of which I have given account of, that
came to untimely ends; and that now she was the occasion
of my ruin, for she had persuaded me to go on, when I would
have left off. I interrupted her there. 'No, mother, no,' said I,
'don't speak of that, for you would have had me left off when
I got the mercer's money again, and when I came home from
Moll Flanders |
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 Alexander's Bridge by Willa Cather: Mainhall had said, she was the second act;
the plot and feeling alike depended upon her
lightness of foot, her lightness of touch, upon
the shrewdness and deft fancifulness that
played alternately, and sometimes together,
in her mirthful brown eyes. When she began
to dance, by way of showing the gossoons what
she had seen in the fairy rings at night,
the house broke into a prolonged uproar.
After her dance she withdrew from the dialogue
and retreated to the ditch wall back of Philly's
Alexander's Bridge |
