| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Tattine by Ruth Ogden [Mrs. Charles W. Ide]: them, wholly unconscious that they had been in any peril whatsoever.
"And Black-and-white would have killed them, every one, if she had had the
chance," thought Tattine; "oh, if I only knew how to teach her a lesson!"
CHAPTER V. THE KIRKS AT HOME
Barney the donkey was harnessed, and Tattine sat in the little donkey-cart
waiting, and as she waited she was saying aloud, "What, Grandma Luty? Yes,
Grandma Luty. No, Grandma Luty. What did you say, Grandma Luty?" and this she
said in the most polite little tone imaginable. Meantime Rudolph and Mabel,
discovering that Tattine did not see them, came stealing along under cover of
the apple-trees.
"Whatever is Tattine doing, talking to herself like that?" whispered Mabel,
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Smalcald Articles by Dr. Martin Luther: repenting of and striving with it, happen to fall into
manifest sins, as David into adultery, murder, and blasphemy,
that then faith and the Holy Ghost has departed from them
[they cast out faith and the Holy Ghost]. For the Holy Ghost
does not permit sin to have dominion, to gain the upper hand
so as to be accomplished, but represses and restrains it so
that it must not do what it wishes. But if it does what it
wishes, the Holy Ghost and faith are [certainly] not present.
For St. John says, 1 Ep. 3, 9: Whosoever is born of God doth
not commit sin,... and he cannot sin. And yet it is also the
truth when the same St. John says, 1 Ep. 1, 8: If we say that
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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 Before Adam by Jack London: they dashed into the wide-mouthed cave wherein Lop-Ear
and I had played the afternoon before.
What happened inside there was no way of telling, but
it is fair to conclude that the two Folk slipped
through the connecting crevice into the other cave.
This crevice was too small to allow for the passage of
Saber-Tooth, and he came out the way he had gone in,
unsatisfied and angry. It was evident that his night's
hunting had been unsuccessful and that he had expected
to make a meal off of us. He caught sight of the two
Folk at the other cave-mouth and sprang for them. Of
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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 Fairy Tales by Hans Christian Andersen: which we see in some old pictures, and which, should we not have seen a
similar play of color in the South, we declare at once to be unnatural. It was
a glorious prospect; but the stomach was empty, the body tired; all that the
heart cared and longed for was good night-quarters; yet how would they be? For
these one looked much more anxiously than for the charms of nature, which
every where were so profusely displayed.
The road led through an olive-grove, and here the solitary inn was situated.
Ten or twelve crippled-beggars had encamped outside. The healthiest of them
resembled, to use an expression of Marryat's, "Hunger's eldest son when he had
come of age"; the others were either blind, had withered legs and crept about
on their hands, or withered arms and fingerless hands. It was the most
Fairy Tales |
