| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Barlaam and Ioasaph by St. John of Damascus: reins to unreasonable lusts, is carried about hither and thither.
Therefore saith the prophet, mourning the folly that encompasseth
such souls, and lamenting the thick darkness that lieth on them,
'O ye sons of men, how long will ye be of heavy heart? Why love
ye vanity, and seek after leasing?' And in the same tone as he,
but adding thereto some thing of his own, one of our wise
teachers, a most excellent divine, crieth aloud to all, as from
some exceeding high place of vantage, `O ye sons of men, how long
will ye be of heavy heart? Why love ye vanity and seek after
leasing? Trow ye that this present life, and luxury, and these
shreds of glory, and petty lordship and false prosperity are any
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Alexandria and her Schools by Charles Kingsley: every nation and institution, the wheat will be sifted out and gathered
into God's garner, for the use of future generations, and the chaff
burnt up with that fire unquenchable which will try every man's work,
without being of opinion that after a few more years are over, the great
majority of the human race will be consigned hopelessly to never-ending
torments.
If prophecy be indeed a divine message to man; if it be anything but a
cabbala, useless either to the simple-minded or to the logical, intended
only for the plaything of a few devout fancies, it must declare the
unchangeable laws by which the unchangeable God is governing, and has
always governed, the human race; and therefore only by understanding
|
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Life in the Iron-Mills by Rebecca Davis: disappointment. A morbid, gloomy man, untaught, unled, left to
feed his soul in grossness and crime, and hard, grinding labor.
I want you to come down and look at this Wolfe, standing there
among the lowest of his kind, and see him just as he is, that
you may judge him justly when you hear the story of this night.
I want you to look back, as he does every day, at his birth in
vice, his starved infancy; to remember the heavy years he has
groped through as boy and man,--the slow, heavy years of
constant, hot work. So long ago he began, that he thinks
sometimes he has worked there for ages. There is no hope that
it will ever end. Think that God put into this man's soul a
Life in the Iron-Mills |
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 Miracle Mongers and Their Methods by Harry Houdini: bordering on the grave. He was blown into
a thousand atoms. It took place on
Wednesday of last week and some accounts
state that it grew out of an experiment
with phosphoric ether, others that it was
by a too liberal indulgence in Prussic acid,
an article which, from its resemblance to
the peach, he was remarkably fond of having
about him.''
The Doctor was extensively accused of
quackery, and on one occasion when the
Miracle Mongers and Their Methods |
