| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Master and Man by Leo Tolstoy: 'From A-a-a-a!' one of the peasants shouted with all his might,
but still it was impossible to make out who they were.
'Get along! Keep up!' shouted another, ceaselessly beating
his horse with the switch.
'So you're from a feast, it seems?'
'Go on, go on! Faster, Simon! Get in front! Faster!'
The wings of the sledges bumped against one another, almost got
jammed but managed to separate, and the peasants' sledge began
to fall behind.
Their shaggy, big-bellied horse, all covered with snow,
breathed heavily under the low shaft-bow and, evidently using
Master and Man |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Smalcald Articles by Dr. Martin Luther: Therefore we ought not here to kiss his feet, or to say: Thou
art my gracious lord, but as the angel in Zechariah 3, 2 said
to Satan: The Lord rebuke thee, O Satan.
THE THIRD PART OF THE ARTICLES.
Concerning the following articles we may [will be able to]
treat with learned and reasonable men, or among ourselves. The
Pope and his [the Papal] government do not care much about
these. For with them conscience is nothing, but money, [glory]
honors, power are [to them] everything.
I. Of Sin.
Here we must confess, as Paul says in Rom. 5, 11, that sin
|
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Alkahest by Honore de Balzac: more distinct. Soon, without possessing the power of this ardent
creature to abolish space and meet her other self, even a stranger
would have heard the foot-fall of a man upon the staircase which led
down from the gallery to the parlor.
The sound of that step would have startled the most heedless being
into thought; it was impossible to hear it coolly. A precipitate,
headlong step produces fear. When a man springs forward and cries,
"Fire!" his feet speak as loudly as his voice. If this be so, then a
contrary gait ought not to cause less powerful emotion. The slow
approach, the dragging step of the coming man might have irritated an
unreflecting spectator; but an observer, or a nervous person, would
|
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 Tristram Shandy by Laurence Sterne: abbess of Quedlingberg's private lecture, and had begun to read in public,
which she did upon a stool in the middle of the great parade,--she
incommoded the other demonstrators mainly, by gaining incontinently the
most fashionable part of the city of Strasburg for her auditory--But when a
demonstrator in philosophy (cries Slawkenbergius) has a trumpet for an
apparatus, pray what rival in science can pretend to be heard besides him?
Whilst the unlearned, thro' these conduits of intelligence, were all busied
in getting down to the bottom of the well, where Truth keeps her little
court--were the learned in their way as busy in pumping her up thro' the
conduits of dialect induction--they concerned themselves not with facts--
they reasoned--
|
