| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from New Poems by Robert Louis Stevenson: It's many a lonely league from home, o'er many a mountain crest,
From where the dogs of Scotland call the sheep around the fold,
To where the flags are flying beside the Gates of Gold.
Where all the deep-sea galleons ride that come to bring the corn,
Where falls the fog at eventide and blows the breeze at morn;
It's there that I was sick and sad, alone and poor and cold,
In yon distressful city beside the Gates of Gold.
I slept as one that nothing knows; but far along my way,
Before the morning God rose and planned the coming day;
Afar before me forth he went, as through the sands of old,
And chose the friends to help me beside the Gates of Gold.
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Polly of the Circus by Margaret Mayo: "But THIS is nothing serious," said the pastor, trying to cheer
her.
"It's serious ENOUGH, with a whole show a'- dependin' on you.
Maybe you don't know how it feels to have to knock off work."
"Oh, yes, I do," Douglas answered quickly. "I was ill a while
ago myself. I had to be in bed day after day, thinking of dozens
of things that I ought to be doing."
"Was you ever floored?" Polly asked with a touch of unbelief as
she studied the fine, healthy physique at the side of her bed.
" 'Deed he was, chile," Mandy cried, feeling that her opportunity
had now arrived; "an' I had the wors' time a-keepin' him in bed.
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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 A treatise on Good Works by Dr. Martin Luther: offices fall into the hands not only of unlearned and unfit men,
but the greater part into the hands of the Romans, the greatest
villains in the world. Thus what has been founded for God's
service, for the instruction, government and improvement of the
people, must now serve the stable-boys, mule-drivers, yea, not
to use plainer language, Roman whores and knaves; yet we have no
more thanks than that they mock us for it as fools.
X. If then such unbearable abuses are all carried on in the Name
of God and St. Peter, just as if God's Name and the spiritual
power were instituted to blaspheme God's honor, to destroy
Christendom, body and soul: we are indeed in duty bound to resist
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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 The Elixir of Life by Honore de Balzac: not dominate that harmony. But the shrill sound of children's
singing among the choristers, the reverberation of deep bass
notes, awakened gracious associations, visions of childhood, and
of man in his strength, and rose above that entrancing harmony of
human voices blended in one sentiment of love.
Te Deum laudamus!
The chant went up from the black masses of men and women kneeling
in the cathedral, like a sudden breaking out of light in
darkness, and the silence was shattered as by a peal of thunder.
The voices floated up with the clouds of incense that had begun
to cast thin bluish veils over the fanciful marvels of the
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