| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Within the Tides by Joseph Conrad: suffered enough. She had her purgatory on this earth - God rest
her soul."
Byrne says he was so astonished by the sudden appearance of that
sprite-like being, and by the sardonic bitterness of the speech,
that he was unable to disentangle the significant fact from what
seemed but a piece of family history fired out at him without rhyme
or reason. Not at first. He was confounded and at the same time
he was impressed by the rapid forcible delivery, quite different
from the frothy excited loquacity of an Italian. So he stared
while the homunculus letting his cloak fall about him, aspired an
immense quantity of snuff out of the hollow of his palm.
 Within the Tides |
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 Concerning Christian Liberty by Martin Luther: does to us. But now, in the doctrine of men, we are taught only
to seek after merits, rewards, and things which are already ours,
and we have made of Christ a taskmaster far more severe than
Moses.
The Blessed Virgin beyond all others, affords us an example of
the same faith, in that she was purified according to the law of
Moses, and like all other women, though she was bound by no such
law and had no need of purification. Still she submitted to the
law voluntarily and of free love, making herself like the rest of
women, that she might not offend or throw contempt on them. She
was not justified by doing this; but, being already justified,
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