| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Resurrection by Leo Tolstoy: Christ in whose name it was being done. No one seemed to realise
that the gilt cross with the enamel medallions at the ends, which
the priest held out to the people to be kissed, was nothing but
the emblem of that gallows on which Christ had been executed for
denouncing just what was going on here. That these priests, who
imagined they were eating and drinking the body and blood of
Christ in the form of bread and wine, did in reality eat and
drink His flesh and His blood, but not as wine and bits of bread,
but by ensnaring "these little ones" with whom He identified
Himself, by depriving them of the greatest blessings and
submitting them to most cruel torments, and by hiding from men
Resurrection |
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 Boys' Life of Abraham Lincoln by Helen Nicolay: for party effect. In framing the political part of their attack,
they had found it necessary to consult Lincoln, and he obligingly
set them a pattern by writing the first letter himself.
Shields sent to the editor of the paper to find out the name of
the real "Rebecca." The editor, as in duty bound, consulted
Lincoln, and was told to give Lincoln's name, but not to mention
the ladies. Shields then sent Lincoln an angry challenge; and
Lincoln, who considered the whole affair ridiculous, and would
willingly have explained his part in it if Shields had made a
gentlemanly inquiry, chose as weapons "broadswords of the largest
size," and named as conditions of the duel that a plank ten feet
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