| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Kwaidan by Lafcadio Hearn: without thanks... "But I think he must be a gipsy. Gipsies are bad people
-- and they are wizards... Let us go back to the wood."
We climb again to the pines, and there squat down upon the sun-flecked
grass, and look over town and sea. But we do not play as before: the spell
of the wizard is strong upon us both... "Perhaps he is a goblin," I venture
at last, "or a fairy?" "No," says Robert,-- "only a gipsy. But that is
nearly as bad. They steal children, you know."...
"What shall we do if he comes up here?" I gasp, in sudden terror at the
lonesomeness of our situation.
"Oh, he wouldn't dare," answers Robert -- "not by daylight, you know."...
[Only yesterday, near the village of Takata, I noticed a flower which the
Kwaidan |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Augsburg Confession by Philip Melanchthon: 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
grace of Christ, and seeks a way to God without Christ, by
human strength, although Christ has said of Himself: I am the
Way, the Truth, and the Life. John 14, 6.
This doctrine concerning faith is everywhere treated by Paul,
Eph. 2, 8: By grace are ye saved through faith; and that not
of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, etc.
And lest any one should craftily say that a new interpretation
of Paul has been devised by us, this entire matter is
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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 Tour Through Eastern Counties of England by Daniel Defoe: antiquity of it, by the merry grant of it from Edward the Confessor
before the Norman Conquest to Randolph Peperking, one of his
favourites, who was after called Peverell, and whose name remains
still in several villages in this county; as particularly that of
Hatfield Peverell, in the road from Chelmsford to Witham, which is
supposed to be originally a park, which they called a field in
those days; and Hartfield may be as much as to say a park for doer;
for the stags were in those days called harts, so that this was
neither more nor less than Randolph Peperking's Hartfield - that is
to say, Ralph Peverell's deer-park.
N.B. - This Ralph Randolph, or Ralph Peverell (call him as you
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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 Domestic Peace by Honore de Balzac: He went away, thinking himself clever to have piqued the Countess'
pride and done Montcornet an ill turn; but, in spite of his habitual
keenness, he had not appreciated the irony underlying Madame de
Vaudremont's speech, and did not perceive that she had come as far to
meet his friend as his friend towards her, though both were
unconscious of it.
At that moment when the lawyer went fluttering up to the candelabrum
by which Madame de Soulanges sat, pale, timid, and apparently alive
only in her eyes, her husband came to the door of the ballroom, his
eyes flashing with anger. The old Duchess, watchful of everything,
flew to her nephew, begged him to give her his arm and find her
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