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: And under various whimsical pretexts
Endowed another with your damned defects,
Could you have dreamed in your despondent vein
That the kind God would make your path so plain?
Non nobis, domine! O, may He still
Support my stumbling footsteps on the hill!
BEFORE THIS LITTLE GIFT WAS COME
BEFORE this little gift was come
The little owner had made haste for home;
And from the door of where the eternal dwell,
Looked back on human things and smiled farewell.
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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 Large Catechism by Dr. Martin Luther: matters], but others from sheer laziness and care for their paunches,
assuming no other relation to this business than if they were pastors
and preachers for their bellies' sake, and had nothing to do but to
[spend and] consume their emoluments as long as they live, as they have
been accustomed to do under the Papacy.
And although they have now everything that they are to preach and
teach placed before them so abundantly, clearly, and easily, in so many
[excellent and] helpful books, and the true Sermones per se loquentes,
Dormi secure, Paratos et Thesauros, as they were called in former
times; yet they are not so godly and honest as to buy these books, or
even when they have them, to look at them or read them. Alas! they are
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