| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from A treatise on Good Works by Dr. Martin Luther: and, alas! little regarded. Every one wants to be of importance
and not to be the least, however small he may be; so deeply is
nature sunk in the evil of its own conceit and in its
self-confidence contrary to these two first Commandments.
Now the world regards this terrible vice as the highest virtue,
and this makes it exceedingly dangerous for those who do not
understand and have not had experience of God's Commandments and
the histories of the Holy Scriptures, to read or hear the heathen
books and histories. For all heathen books are poisoned through
and through with this striving after praise and honor; in them
men are taught by blind reason that they were not nor could be
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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 Charmides and Other Poems by Oscar Wilde: And laughs to see the sudden lightening scare
His children at their play, and yet, - the spring is in the air;
Already the slim crocus stirs the snow,
And soon yon blanched fields will bloom again
With nodding cowslips for some lad to mow,
For with the first warm kisses of the rain
The winter's icy sorrow breaks to tears,
And the brown thrushes mate, and with bright eyes the rabbit peers
From the dark warren where the fir-cones lie,
And treads one snowdrop under foot, and runs
Over the mossy knoll, and blackbirds fly
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