| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Large Catechism by Dr. Martin Luther: reason, too, they have resorted to the cloisters, so that they might
not be obliged to suffer any wrong from any one or to do him any good.
But know now that these are the true, holy, and godly works, in which,
with all the angels He rejoices, in comparison with which all human
holiness is but stench and filth, and besides, deserves nothing but
wrath and damnation.
The Sixth Commandment.
Thou shalt not commit adultery.
These commandments now [that follow] are easily understood from [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 The Ancient Regime by Charles Kingsley: mirror of an inhuman age, in which the healthy human heart can find
no more interest than in a pathological museum.
That last, indeed, "Gil Blas" is; a collection of diseased
specimens. No man or woman in the book, lay or clerical, gentle or
simple, as far as I can remember, do their duty in any wise, even if
they recollect that they have any duty to do. Greed, chicane,
hypocrisy, uselessness are the ruling laws of human society. A new
book of Ecclesiastes, crying, "Vanity of vanity, all is vanity;" the
"conclusion of the whole matter" being left out, and the new
Ecclesiastes rendered thereby diabolic, instead of like that old
one, divine. For, instead of "Fear God and keep his commandments,
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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 Z. Marcas by Honore de Balzac: A fallen minister, if he is to rise again to power, must show that he
is to be feared; this man, intoxicated by Royal glibness, had fancied
that his position would be permanent; he acknowledged his
delinquencies; besides confessing them, he did Marcas a small money
service, for Marcas had got into debt. He subsidized the newspaper on
which Marcas worked, and made him the manager of it.
Though he despised the man, Marcas, who, practically, was being
subsidized too, consented to take the part of the fallen minister.
Without unmasking at once all the batteries of his superior intellect,
Marcas came a little further than before; he showed half his
shrewdness. The Ministry lasted only a hundred and eighty days; it was
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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 Merry Men by Robert Louis Stevenson: his piety. He had his black fits when he was afraid of hell; but
he had led a rough life, to which he would look back with envy, and
was still a rough, cold, gloomy man.
As he came in at the door out of the sunlight, with his bonnet on
his head and a pipe hanging in his button-hole, he seemed, like
Rorie, to have grown older and paler, the lines were deeplier
ploughed upon his face, and the whites of his eyes were yellow,
like old stained ivory, or the bones of the dead.
'Ay' he repeated, dwelling upon the first part of the word, 'the
CHRIST-ANNA. It's an awfu' name.'
I made him my salutations, and complimented him upon his look of
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