| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Augsburg Confession by Philip Melanchthon: do good works, not that we should trust to merit grace by
them, but because it is the will of God. It is only by faith
that forgiveness of sins is apprehended, and that, for
nothing. And because through faith the Holy Ghost is received,
hearts are renewed and endowed with new affections, so as to
be able to bring forth good works. For Ambrose says: Faith is
the mother of a good will and right doing. For man's powers
without the Holy Ghost are full of ungodly affections, and are
too weak to do works which are good in God's sight. Besides,
they are in the power of the devil who impels men to divers
sins, to ungodly opinions, to open crimes. This we may see in
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Lysis by Plato: have loved or desired or affected him, if he had not been in some way
congenial to him, either in his soul, or in his character, or in his
manners, or in his form.
Yes, yes, said Menexenus. But Lysis was silent.
Then, I said, the conclusion is, that what is of a congenial nature must be
loved.
It follows, he said.
Then the lover, who is true and no counterfeit, must of necessity be loved
by his love.
Lysis and Menexenus gave a faint assent to this; and Hippothales changed
into all manner of colours with delight.
Lysis |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy: seemed to be a smile of some sort upon the marble features of Jude;
while the old, superseded, Delphin editions of Virgil and Horace,
and the dog-eared Greek Testament on the neighbouring shelf, and the few
other volumes of the sort that he had not parted with, roughened with
stone-dust where he had been in the habit of catching them up for a few
minutes between his labours, seemed to pale to a sickly cast at the sounds.
The bells struck out joyously; and their reverberations travelled round
the bed-room.
Arabella's eyes removed from Jude to Mrs. Edlin. "D'ye think she will come?"
she asked.
"I could not say. She swore not to see him again."
Jude the Obscure |
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 Pierre Grassou by Honore de Balzac: mind and the thrift of a poor man. A bureau was there, in which to put
away the studio implements, a table for breakfast, a sideboard, a
secretary; in short, all the articles necessary to a painter, neatly
arranged and very clean. The stove participated in this Dutch
cleanliness, which was all the more visible because the pure and
little changing light from the north flooded with its cold clear beams
the vast apartment. Fougeres, being merely a genre painter, does not
need the immense machinery and outfit which ruin historical painters;
he has never recognized within himself sufficient faculty to attempt
high-art, and he therefore clings to easel painting.
At the beginning of the month of December of that year, a season at
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