| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain: the fatal knife in Potter's open right hand, and sat
down on the dismantled coffin. Three -- four -- five
minutes passed, and then Potter began to stir and
moan. His hand closed upon the knife; he raised
it, glanced at it, and let it fall, with a shudder. Then
he sat up, pushing the body from him, and gazed at it,
and then around him, confusedly. His eyes met Joe's.
"Lord, how is this, Joe?" he said.
"It's a dirty business," said Joe, without moving.
"What did you do it for?"
"I! I never done it!"
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Youth by Joseph Conrad: something whitish, sluggish, stirring--of something that
was like a greasy fog. The smoke of the invisible fire
was coming up again, was trailing, like a poisonous thick
mist in some valley choked with dead wood. Already
lazy wisps were beginning to curl upwards amongst the
mass of splinters. Here and there a piece of timber,
stuck upright, resembled a post. Half of a fife-rail had
been shot through the foresail, and the sky made a
patch of glorious blue in the ignobly soiled canvas. A
portion of several boards holding together had fallen
across the rail, and one end protruded overboard, like a
Youth |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Mansfield Park by Jane Austen: It can make very little difference to you, whether you are
in one house or the other."
Fanny left the room with a very sorrowful heart; she could
not feel the difference to be so small, she could not think
of living with her aunt with anything like satisfaction.
As soon as she met with Edmund she told him her distress.
"Cousin," said she, "something is going to happen which I
do not like at all; and though you have often persuaded me
into being reconciled to things that I disliked at first,
you will not be able to do it now. I am going to live
entirely with my aunt Norris."
Mansfield Park |
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 Commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians by Martin Luther: evidently men of great popularity and influence. What right, then, have
we to make little of doctrine? No matter how nonessential a point of
doctrine may seem, if slighted it may prove the gradual disintegration of
the truths of our salvation.
Let us do everything to advance the glory and authority of God's Word.
Every tittle of it is greater than heaven and earth. Christian charity and
unity have nothing to do with the Word of God. We are bold to curse and
condemn all men who in the least point corrupt the Word of God, "for a
little leaven leaveneth the whole lump."
Paul does right to curse these troublers of the Galatians, wishing that they
were cut off and rooted out of the Church of God and that their doctrine
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