| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Falk by Joseph Conrad: showed her to be a Norwegian. She made an awful
lot of smoke; and before it had quite blown away, a
high-sided, short, wooden barque, in ballast and
towed by a paddle-tug, appeared in front of the
windows. All her hands were forward busy setting
up the headgear; and aft a woman in a red hood,
quite alone with the man at the wheel, paced the
length of the poop back and forth, with the grey
wool of some knitting work in her hands.
"German I should think," muttered one. "The
skipper has his wife on board," remarked another;
Falk |
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: approve]. Let him, however, who will do it, do so without us
[at his own risk].
Hence it follows that all things which the Pope, from a power
so false, mischievous, blasphemous, and arrogant, has done and
undertaken. have been and still are purely diabolical affairs
and transactions (with the exception of such things as pertain
to the secular government, where God often permits much good
to be effected for a people, even through a tyrant and
[faithless] scoundrel) for the ruin of the entire holy
[catholic or] Christian Church (so far as it is in his power)
and for the destruction of the first and chief article
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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 The Snow Image by Nathaniel Hawthorne: shouting with enthusiasm so contagious that the heart of Ernest
kindled up, and he likewise threw up his hat, and shouted, as
loudly as the loudest, "Huzza for the great man! Huzza for Old
Stony Phiz!" But as yet he had not seen him.
"Here he is, now!" cried those who stood near Ernest. "There!
There! Look at Old Stony Phiz and then at the Old Man of the
Mountain, and see if they are not as like as two twin-brothers!"
In the midst of all this gallant array came an open barouche,
drawn by four white horses; and in the barouche, with his massive
head uncovered, sat the illustrious statesman, Old Stony Phiz
himself.
The Snow Image |
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 Exiles by Honore de Balzac: love? Listen! It has been given to me to see immeasurable space,
bottomless gulfs in which all human creations are swallowed up, the
shoreless sea whither flows the vast stream of men and of angels. As I
made my way through the realms of eternal torment, I was sheltered
under the cloak of an immortal--the robe of glory due to genius, and
which the ages hand on--I, a frail mortal! When I wandered through the
fields of light where the happy souls play, I was borne up by the love
of a woman, the wings of an angel; resting on her heart, I could taste
the ineffable pleasures whose touch is more perilous to us mortals
than are the torments of the worser world.
"As I achieved my pilgrimage through the dark regions below I had
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