| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians by Martin Luther: become angry with you. They are that way because, as St. Paul says, they
"think themselves to be something," they think they know all about the
Scriptures.
Paul has their number when he calls them zeros. They deceive themselves
with their self-suggested wisdom and holiness. They have no understanding
of Christ or the law of Christ. By insisting that everything be perfect they
not only fail to bear the burdens of the weak, they actually offend the weak
by their severity. People begin to hate and shun them and refuse to accept
counsel or comfort from them.
Paul describes these stiff and ungracious saints accurately when he says of
them, "They think themselves to be something." Bloated by their own silly
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Georgics by Virgil: Along the sky, Liber and Ceres mild,
If by your bounty holpen earth once changed
Chaonian acorn for the plump wheat-ear,
And mingled with the grape, your new-found gift,
The draughts of Achelous; and ye Fauns
To rustics ever kind, come foot it, Fauns
And Dryad-maids together; your gifts I sing.
And thou, for whose delight the war-horse first
Sprang from earth's womb at thy great trident's stroke,
Neptune; and haunter of the groves, for whom
Three hundred snow-white heifers browse the brakes,
Georgics |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Illustrious Gaudissart by Honore de Balzac: operation, and to extract it pleasantly and without pain. Can you
think without a shudder of the flood of phrases which, day by day,
renewed each dawn, leaps in cascades the length and breadth of sunny
France?
You know the species; let us now take a look at the individual.
There lives in Paris an incomparable commercial traveller, the paragon
of his race, a man who possesses in the highest degree all the
qualifications necessary to the nature of his success. His speech is
vitriol and likewise glue,--glue to catch and entangle his victim and
make him sticky and easy to grip; vitriol to dissolve hard heads,
close fists, and closer calculations. His line was once the HAT; but
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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 Eugenie Grandet by Honore de Balzac: He looked fixedly at his wife.
"Monsieur Grandet, if you wish to kill me, you have only to go on like
this. I tell you, monsieur,--and if it were to cost me my life, I
would say it,--you do wrong by your daughter; she is more in the right
than you are. That money belonged to her; she is incapable of making
any but a good use of it, and God alone has the right to know our good
deeds. Monsieur, I implore you, take Eugenie back into favor; forgive
her. If you will do this you will lessen the injury your anger has
done me; perhaps you will save my life. My daughter! oh, monsieur,
give me back my daughter!"
"I shall decamp," he said; "the house is not habitable. A mother and
Eugenie Grandet |
