| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Aesop's Fables by Aesop: and slight." At that moment a Hunter approached and sent an arrow
whistling after him. Away bounded the Hart, and soon, by the aid
of his nimble legs, was nearly out of sight of the Hunter; but not
noticing where he was going, he passed under some trees with
branches growing low down in which his antlers were caught, so
that the Hunter had time to come up. "Alas! alas!" cried the
Hart:
"We often despise what is most useful to us."
The Serpent and the File
A Serpent in the course of its wanderings came into an
armourer's shop. As he glided over the floor he felt his skin
Aesop's Fables |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Several Works by Edgar Allan Poe: walls, falling in heavy folds upon a carpet of the same material
and hue. But in this chamber only, the colour of the windows
failed to correspond with the decorations. The panes here were
scarlet--a deep blood colour. Now in no one of the seven
apartments was there any lamp or candelabrum, amid the profusion of
golden ornaments that lay scattered to and fro or depended from the
roof. There was no light of any kind emanating from lamp or candle
within the suite of chambers. But in the corridors that followed
the suite, there stood, opposite to each window, a heavy tripod,
bearing a brazier of fire, that projected its rays through the
tinted glass and so glaringly illumined the room. And thus were
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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 Sesame and Lilies by John Ruskin: is only by reason of the opposition of letters in the function of
signs, to sounds in the function of signs, that the study of books
is called "literature," and that a man versed in it is called, by
the consent of nations, a man of letters instead of a man of books,
or of words, you may yet connect with that accidental nomenclature
this real fact:- that you might read all the books in the British
Museum (if you could live long enough), and remain an utterly
"illiterate," uneducated person; but that if you read ten pages of a
good book, letter by letter,--that is to say, with real accuracy,--
you are for evermore in some measure an educated person. The entire
difference between education and non-education (as regards the
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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 Augsburg Confession by Philip Melanchthon: Council, and that your Imperial Majesty also judged it to be
expedient to convene a Council; and that Your Imperial Majesty
did not doubt the Roman Pontiff could be induced to hold a
General Council, because the matters to be adjusted between Your
Imperial Majesty and the Roman Pontiff were nearing agreement and
Christian reconciliation; therefore Your Imperial Majesty himself
signified that he would endeavor to secure the said Chief
Pontiff's consent for convening, together with your Imperial
Majesty such General Council, to be published as soon as possible
by letters that were to be sent out.
If the outcome, therefore, should be such that the differences
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