| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Phaedrus by Plato: described by Socrates in figures of speech which would not be used in
Christian times; or that nameless vices were prevalent at Athens and in
other Greek cities; or that friendships between men were a more sacred tie,
and had a more important social and educational influence than among
ourselves. (See note on Symposium.)
In the Phaedrus, as well as in the Symposium, there are two kinds of love,
a lower and a higher, the one answering to the natural wants of the animal,
the other rising above them and contemplating with religious awe the forms
of justice, temperance, holiness, yet finding them also 'too dazzling
bright for mortal eye,' and shrinking from them in amazement. The
opposition between these two kinds of love may be compared to the
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Concerning Christian Liberty by Martin Luther: all things, even those of earth and hell, are subject to Him--for
otherwise how could He defend and save us from them?--but it is
not in these, nor by these, that His kingdom stands.
So, too, His priesthood does not consist in the outward display
of vestments and gestures, as did the human priesthood of Aaron
and our ecclesiastical priesthood at this day, but in spiritual
things, wherein, in His invisible office, He intercedes for us
with God in heaven, and there offers Himself, and performs all
the duties of a priest, as Paul describes Him to the Hebrews
under the figure of Melchizedek. Nor does He only pray and
intercede for us; He also teaches us inwardly in the spirit with
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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 The Master of Ballantrae by Robert Louis Stevenson: scalp, as I stood there staring - so strange was the sight, so dire
the fears it wakened. I looked right and left; the ground was so
hard, it told no story. I stood and listened till my ears ached,
but the night was hollow about me like an empty church; not even a
ripple stirred upon the shore; it seemed you might have heard a pin
drop in the county.
I put the candle out, and the blackness fell about me groping dark;
it was like a crowd surrounding me; and I went back to the house of
Durrisdeer, with my chin upon my shoulder, startling, as I went,
with craven suppositions. In the door a figure moved to meet me,
and I had near screamed with terror ere I recognised Mrs. Henry.
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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 Chronicles of the Canongate by Walter Scott: like hers had been the theme of a traveller's amusement. Yet the
look with which she regarded me was one of scorn instead of
embarrassment. The opinion of the world and all its children
could not add or take an iota from her load of misery; and, save
from the half smile that seemed to intimate the contempt of a
being rapt by the very intensity of her affliction above the
sphere of ordinary humanities, she seemed as indifferent to my
gaze, as if she had been a dead corpse or a marble statue.
Elspat was above the middle stature. Her hair, now grizzled, was
still profuse, and it had been of the most decided black. So
were her eyes, in which, contradicting the stern and rigid
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