| 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: holiness does not consist in albs, tonsures, long gowns, and
other of their ceremonies devised by them beyond Holy
Scripture, but in the Word of God and true faith.
XIII. How One is Justified before God, and of Good Works.
What I have hitherto and constantly taught concerning this I
know not how to change in the least, namely, that by faith, as
St. Peter says, we acquire a new and clean heart, and God will
and does account us entirely righteous and holy for the sake
of Christ, our Mediator. And although sin in the flesh has not
yet been altogether removed or become dead, yet He will not
punish or remember it.
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Underdogs by Mariano Azuela: "Is this the road to Durango?"
"Peaceful people can't travel over the main road
nowadays, you know that, Chief."
"You're not peaceful people, you're deserters. Where
do you come from?" Demetrio said, eyeing them with
keen scrutiny.
The prisoners grew confused; they looked at each
other hesitatingly, unable to give a prompt answer.
"They're Carranzistas," one of the soldiers said.
"Carranzistas hell!" one of them said proudly. "I'd
rather be a pig."
The Underdogs |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Apology by Plato: curious person, searching into things under the earth and above the heaven;
and making the worse appear the better cause, and teaching all this to
others.' The second, 'Socrates is an evil-doer and corrupter of the youth,
who does not receive the gods whom the state receives, but introduces other
new divinities.' These last words appear to have been the actual
indictment (compare Xen. Mem.); and the previous formula, which is a
summary of public opinion, assumes the same legal style.
The answer begins by clearing up a confusion. In the representations of
the Comic poets, and in the opinion of the multitude, he had been
identified with the teachers of physical science and with the Sophists.
But this was an error. For both of them he professes a respect in the open
|
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 Lord Arthur Savile's Crime, etc. by Oscar Wilde: THE next day the ghost was very weak and tired. The terrible
excitement of the last four weeks was beginning to have its effect.
His nerves were completely shattered, and he started at the
slightest noise. For five days he kept his room, and at last made
up his mind to give up the point of the blood-stain on the library
floor. If the Otis family did not want it, they clearly did not
deserve it. They were evidently people on a low, material plane of
existence, and quite incapable of appreciating the symbolic value
of sensuous phenomena. The question of phantasmic apparitions, and
the development of astral bodies, was of course quite a different
matter, and really not under his control. It was his solemn duty
|
