| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Richard III by William Shakespeare: The usurping helmets of our adversaries!
Make us Thy ministers of chastisement,
That we may praise Thee in the victory!
To Thee I do commend my watchful soul
Ere I let fall the windows of mine eyes.
Sleeping and waking, O, defend me still! [Sleeps]
Enter the GHOST Of YOUNG PRINCE EDWARD,
son to HENRY THE SIXTH
GHOST. [To RICHARD] Let me sit heavy on thy soul
to-morrow!
Think how thou stabb'dst me in my prime of youth
Richard III |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Mrs. Warren's Profession by George Bernard Shaw: ones] Ha! ha! ha! ha! Go it, little missie, go it: it doesnt
hurt me and it amuses you. Why the devil shouldnt I invest my
money that way? I take the interest on my capital like other
people: I hope you dont think I dirty my own hands with the work.
Come! you wouldnt refuse the acquaintance of my mother's cousin
the Duke of Belgravia because some of the rents he gets are
earned in queer ways. You wouldnt cut the Archbishop of
Canterbury, I suppose, because the Ecclesiastical Commissioners
have a few publicans and sinners among their tenants. Do you
remember your Crofts scholarship at Newnham? Well, that was
founded by my brother the M.P. He gets his 22 per cent out of a
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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 Commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians by Martin Luther: Whoever goes back to the Law loses the knowledge of the truth, fails in the
recognition of his sinfulness, does not know God, nor the devil, nor himself,
and does not understand the meaning and purpose of the Law. Without the
knowledge of Christ a man will always argue that the Law is necessary for
salvation, that it will strengthen the weak and enrich the poor. Wherever this
opinion holds sway the promises of God are denied, Christ is demoted,
hypocrisy and idolatry are established.
VERSE 9. Whereunto ye desire again to be in bondage.
The Apostle pointedly asks the Galatians whether they desire to be in
bondage again to the Law. The Law is weak and poor, the sinner is weak and
poor--two feeble beggars trying to help each other. They cannot do it. They
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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 Middlemarch by George Eliot: and reduce any lump in the body when taken enough of into the inside--
the oil by gradually "soopling," the squitchineal by eating away.
Meanwhile when Nancy presented herself at the Infirmary, it happened
to be one of Lydgate's days there. After questioning and examining her,
Lydgate said to the house-surgeon in an undertone, "It's not tumor:
it's cramp." He ordered her a blister and some steel mixture,
and told her to go home and rest, giving her at the same time a note
to Mrs. Larcher, who, she said, was her best employer, to testify
that she was in need of good food.
But by-and-by Nancy, in her attic, became portentously worse,
the supposed tumor having indeed given way to the blister, but only
Middlemarch |
