| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Elizabeth and her German Garden by Marie Annette Beauchamp: servants to exhort and admonish, furniture, and meals;
but out there blessings crowd round me at every step--
it is there that I am sorry for the unkindness in me,
for those selfish thoughts that are so much worse than they feel;
it is there that all my sins and silliness are forgiven,
there that I feel protected and at home, and every flower
and weed is a friend and every tree a lover. When I have been
<29> vexed I run out to them for comfort, and when I have been
angry without just cause, it is there that I find absolution.
Did ever a woman have so many friends? And always the same,
always ready to welcome me and fill me with cheerful thoughts.
Elizabeth and her German Garden |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Euthyphro by Plato: art of attending to dogs?
EUTHYPHRO: Yes.
SOCRATES: As the art of the oxherd is the art of attending to oxen?
EUTHYPHRO: Very true.
SOCRATES: In like manner holiness or piety is the art of attending to the
gods?--that would be your meaning, Euthyphro?
EUTHYPHRO: Yes.
SOCRATES: And is not attention always designed for the good or benefit of
that to which the attention is given? As in the case of horses, you may
observe that when attended to by the horseman's art they are benefited and
improved, are they not?
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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 Smalcald Articles by Dr. Martin Luther: illicit love or the desire for revenge, etc.), they asked
whether he did not wish or desire to have contrition [lament].
When one would reply Yes (for who, save the devil himself,
would here say No?), they accepted this as contrition, and
forgave him his sins on account of this good work of his
[which they adorned with the name of contrition]. Here they
cited the example of St. Bernard, etc.
Here we see how blind reason, in matters pertaining to God,
gropes about, and, according to its own imagination, seeks for
consolation in its own works, and cannot think of [entirely
forgets] Christ and faith. But if it be [clearly] viewed in
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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 The Human Drift by Jack London: the United States will be 500,000,000 in less than a century from
now.
Man, the hungry one, the killer, has always suffered for lack of
room. The world has been chronically overcrowded. Belgium with
her 572 persons to the square mile is no more crowded than was
Denmark when it supported only 500 palaeolithic people. According
to Mr. Woodruff, cultivated land will produce 1600 times as much
food as hunting land. From the time of the Norman Conquest, for
centuries Europe could support no more than 25 to the square mile.
To-day Europe supports 81 to the square mile. The explanation of
this is that for the several centuries after the Norman Conquest
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