| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from A treatise on Good Works by Dr. Martin Luther: do than any man can do? If a man were a thousand men, or all men,
or all creatures, this Commandment would yet ask enough of him,
and more than enough, since he is commanded to live and walk at
all times in faith and confidence toward God, to place such faith
in no one else, and so to have only one, the true God, and none
other.
Now, since the being and nature of man cannot for an instant be
without doing or not doing something, enduring or running away
from something (for, as we see, life never rests), let him who
will be pious and filled with good works, begin and in all his
life and works at all times exercise himself in this faith; let
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Lock and Key Library by Julian Hawthorne, Ed.: torture.
. . . . .
The prisoner underwent the first and second applications with
unshrinking courage, but on the infliction of the water-torture,
which is indeed insupportable to humanity, either to suffer or
relate, he exclaimed in the gasping interval, he would disclose
everything. He was released, refreshed, restored, and the
following day uttered the following remarkable confession. . . .
. . . . .
The old Spanish woman further confessed to Stanton, that. . . .
. . . . .
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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 The Elixir of Life by Honore de Balzac: applies to several of the Studies, and very specially to this.
Every one of his compositions has been based upon ideas more or
less novel, which, as it seemed to him, needed literary
expression; he can claim priority for certain forms and for
certain ideas which have since passed into the domain of
literature, and have there, in some instances, become common
property; so that the date of the first publication of each Study
cannot be a matter of indifference to those of his readers who
would fain do him justice.
Reading brings us unknown friends, and what friend is like a
reader? We have friends in our own circle who read nothing of
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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 Statesman by Plato: YOUNG SOCRATES: No other.
STRANGER: The art of the general is only ministerial, and therefore not
political?
YOUNG SOCRATES: Exactly.
STRANGER: Once more let us consider the nature of the righteous judge.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Very good.
STRANGER: Does he do anything but decide the dealings of men with one
another to be just or unjust in accordance with the standard which he
receives from the king and legislator,--showing his own peculiar virtue
only in this, that he is not perverted by gifts, or fears, or pity, or by
any sort of favour or enmity, into deciding the suits of men with one
Statesman |
