| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Smalcald Articles by Dr. Martin Luther: confess), -- still each one held the other in esteem, so that
some, according to our teaching, were regarded as holy,
without sin and full of good works, so much so that with this
mind we would communicate and sell our good works to others,
as being superfluous to us for heaven. This is indeed true,
and seals, letters, and instances [that this happened] are at
hand.
[When there were such, I say] These did not need repentance.
For of what would they repent, since they had not indulged
wicked thoughts? What would they confess [concerning words not
uttered], since they had avoided words? For what should they
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Beast in the Jungle by Henry James: that would have published the superstition of the Beast. This was
what closed his mouth now--now that the Jungle had been thrashed to
vacancy and that the Beast had stolen away. It sounded too foolish
and too flat; the difference for him in this particular, the
extinction in his life of the element of suspense, was such as in
fact to surprise him. He could scarce have said what the effect
resembled; the abrupt cessation, the positive prohibition, of music
perhaps, more than anything else, in some place all adjusted and
all accustomed to sonority and to attention. If he could at any
rate have conceived lifting the veil from his image at some moment
of the past (what had he done, after all, if not lift it to HER?)
|
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Mirror of the Sea by Joseph Conrad: down to her water-line; and these very eyes which follow this
writing have counted in their time over a hundred sail becalmed, as
if within a magic ring, not very far from the Azores - ships more
or less tall. There were hardly two of them heading exactly the
same way, as if each had meditated breaking out of the enchanted
circle at a different point of the compass. But the spell of the
calm is a strong magic. The following day still saw them scattered
within sight of each other and heading different ways; but when, at
last, the breeze came with the darkling ripple that ran very blue
on a pale sea, they all went in the same direction together. For
this was the homeward-bound fleet from the far-off ends of the
The Mirror of the Sea |
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 Rezanov by Gertrude Atherton: without the great social advantages he inherited, he
had enjoyed power and pleasure to a degree that
would have spoiled a coarser nature long since.
True, the time had come when he had cared little
for any of his endowments save as a means to great
ends, when all his energies had concentrated in the
determination to live a life of the highest possible
usefulness--without which man's span was but exist-
ence--his ambitions had cohered and been driven
steadily toward a permanent niche in history; then
paled and dissolved for an hour in the glorious vision
Rezanov |
