| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Amazing Interlude by Mary Roberts Rinehart: of loneliness in the crowded little house.
She tried very hard to fill the gap that Henri had left - tried to joke
with the men in her queer bits of French; was more smiling than ever,
or fear she might be less. But now and then in cautious whispers she
heard Henri's name, and her heart contracted with very terror.
A week. Two weeks. Twice the village was bombarded severely, but the
little house escaped by a miracle. Marie considered it the same miracle
that left holy pictures unhurt on the walls of destroyed houses, and
allowed the frailest of old ebony and rosewood crucifixes to remain
nharmed.
Great generals, often as tall as they were great, stopped at the little
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Essays & Lectures by Oscar Wilde: conspiracy are very different from the same orations as they appear
in Cicero. Livy makes his ancient Romans wrangle and chop logic
with all the subtlety of a Hortensius or a Scaevola. And even in
later days, when shorthand reporters attended the debates of the
senate and a DAILY NEWS was published in Rome, we find that one of
the most celebrated speeches in Tacitus (that in which the Emperor
Claudius gives the Gauls their freedom) is shown, by an inscription
discovered recently at Lugdunum, to be entirely fabulous.
Upon the other hand, it must be borne in mind that these speeches
were not intended to deceive; they were regarded merely as a
certain dramatic element which it was allowable to introduce into
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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 Augsburg Confession by Philip Melanchthon: silence in their sermons concerning the righteousness of
faith, while only the doctrine of works was treated in the
churches, our teachers have instructed the churches concerning
faith as follows: --
First, that our works cannot reconcile God or merit
forgiveness of sins, grace, and justification, but that we
obtain this only by faith when we believe that we are received
into favor for Christs sake, who alone has been set forth the
Mediator and Propitiation, 1 Tim. 2, 6, in order that the
Father may be reconciled through Him. Whoever, therefore,
trusts that by works he merits grace, despises the merit and
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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 Moll Flanders by Daniel Defoe: the Harwich journey well enough, and in discoursing of these
things between ourselves she observed, that a thief being a
creature that watches the advantages of other people's mistakes,
'tis impossible but that to one that is vigilant and industrious
many opportunities must happen, and therefore she thought
that one so exquisitely keen in the trade as I was, would scarce
fail of something extraordinary wherever I went.
On the other hand, every branch of my story, if duly considered,
may be useful to honest people, and afford a due caution to
people of some sort or other to guard against the like surprises,
and to have their eyes about them when they have to do with
Moll Flanders |
