| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Concerning Christian Liberty by Martin Luther: posterity if they had not sinned. Of them it is said, "The Lord
God took the man and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it
and to keep it" (Gen. ii. 15). Now Adam had been created by God
just and righteous, so that he could not have needed to be
justified and made righteous by keeping the garden and working in
it; but, that he might not be unemployed, God gave him the
business of keeping and cultivating paradise. These would have
indeed been works of perfect freedom, being done for no object
but that of pleasing God, and not in order to obtain
justification, which he already had to the full, and which would
have been innate in us all.
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Heart of the West by O. Henry: "Oh, Mr. Pratt," says Mrs. Sampson, "it's such a comfort to hear you
say them beautiful facts after getting such a jar from that minx of a
Ruby's poetry!"
"Let us sit on this log at the roadside," says I, "and forget the
inhumanity and ribaldry of the poets. It is in the glorious columns of
ascertained facts and legalised measures that beauty is to be found.
In this very log we sit upon, Mrs. Sampson," says I, "is statistics
more wonderful than any poem. The rings show it was sixty years old.
At the depth of two thousand feet it would become coal in three
thousand years. The deepest coal mine in the world is at Killingworth,
near Newcastle. A box four feet long, three feet wide, and two feet
Heart of the West |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Damnation of Theron Ware by Harold Frederic: "the same things are not expected of them. Now I sat
the other night and watched those people you got up
around the altar-rail, groaning and shouting and crying,
and the others jumping up and down with excitement,
and Sister Lovejoy--did you see her?--coming out of her pew
and regularly waltzing in the aisle, with her eyes shut,
like a whirling dervish--I positively believe it was
all that made me ill. I couldn't stand it. I can't
stand it now. I won't go back to it! Nothing shall
make me!"
"Oh-h, yes, you will," she rejoined soothingly.
The Damnation of Theron Ware |
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 Moral Emblems by Robert Louis Stevenson: You dash in chase of Sals and Bridgets,
You drink and risk delirium tremens,
Your whole estate a common seaman's!
Regard your friend and school companion,
Soon to be wed to Miss Trevanion
(Smooth, honourable, fat and flowery,
With Heaven knows how much land in dowry),
Look at me - Am I in good case?
Look at my hands, look at my face;
Look at the cloth of my apparel;
Try me and test me, lock and barrel;
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