| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Captain Stormfield by Mark Twain: general public of heaven. Why, look here - Shakespeare walked
backwards before that tailor from Tennessee, and scattered flowers
for him to walk on, and Homer stood behind his chair and waited on
him at the banquet. Of course that didn't go for much THERE,
amongst all those big foreigners from other systems, as they hadn't
heard of Shakespeare or Homer either, but it would amount to
considerable down there on our little earth if they could know
about it. I wish there was something in that miserable
spiritualism, so we could send them word. That Tennessee village
would set up a monument to Billings, then, and his autograph would
outsell Satan's. Well, they had grand times at that reception - a
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Fables by Robert Louis Stevenson: Poor souls, my heart yearns for them. But the truth is they are
vile, odious, insolent, ill-conditioned, stinking brutes, not truly
human - for what is a man without a fetter? - and you cannot be too
particular not to touch or speak with them."
After this talk, the child would never pass one of the unfettered
on the road but what he spat at him and called him names, which was
the practice of the children in that part.
It chanced one day, when he was fifteen, he went into the woods,
and the ulcer pained him. It was a fair day, with a blue sky; all
the birds were singing; but Jack nursed his foot. Presently,
another song began; it sounded like the singing of a person, only
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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 Woman and Labour by Olive Schreiner: of those men who spat when they spoke his name, and forcibly drew his teeth
to extract his money from him, wait patiently behind each other for
admission to his offices and palaces; while nobles solicit his daughters in
marriage and kings are proud to be summoned to his table in hope of golden
crumbs, and great questions of peace and war are often held balanced in the
hand of one little asthmatic Jew. After long ages of disgrace and
pariahism, the time has come, whether for good or for evil, when just those
qualities which the Jew possesses and which subtilely distinguish him from
others, are in demand; while those he has not are sinking into disuse;
exactly that domination of the reflective faculties over the combative,
which once made him slave, also saved him from becoming extinct in wars;
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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 Concerning Christian Liberty by Martin Luther: from Christ, who is not absent, but dwells among us--provided,
that is, that we believe in Him and are reciprocally and mutually
one the Christ of the other, doing to our neighbour as Christ
does to us. But now, in the doctrine of men, we are taught only
to seek after merits, rewards, and things which are already ours,
and we have made of Christ a taskmaster far more severe than
Moses.
The Blessed Virgin beyond all others, affords us an example of
the same faith, in that she was purified according to the law of
Moses, and like all other women, though she was bound by no such
law and had no need of purification. Still she submitted to the
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