| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from De Profundis by Oscar Wilde: His morality is all sympathy, just what morality should be. If the
only thing that he ever said had been, 'Her sins are forgiven her
because she loved much,' it would have been worth while dying to
have said it. His justice is all poetical justice, exactly what
justice should be. The beggar goes to heaven because he has been
unhappy. I cannot conceive a better reason for his being sent
there. The people who work for an hour in the vineyard in the cool
of the evening receive just as much reward as those who have toiled
there all day long in the hot sun. Why shouldn't they? Probably
no one deserved anything. Or perhaps they were a different kind of
people. Christ had no patience with the dull lifeless mechanical
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Maria, or the Wrongs of Woman by Mary Wollstonecraft: And woman, lovely woman!--they charm everywhere--still there is a
degree of prudery, and a want of taste and ease in the manners of
the American women, that renders them, in spite of their roses and
lilies, far inferior to our European charmers. In the country,
they have often a bewitching simplicity of character; but, in the
cities, they have all the airs and ignorance of the ladies who give
the tone to the circles of the large trading towns in England.
They are fond of their ornaments, merely because they are good,
and not because they embellish their persons; and are more gratified
to inspire the women with jealousy of these exterior advantages,
than the men with love. All the frivolity which often (excuse me,
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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 Lone Star Ranger by Zane Grey: Duane's last fading sensations of that hard day were the
strange feel of a bed, a relief at the removal of his heavy
boots, and of Jennie's soft, cool hands on his hot face.
He lay ill for three weeks before he began to mend, and it was
another week then before he could walk out a little in the dusk
of the evenings. After that his strength returned rapidly. And
it was only at the end of this long siege that he recovered his
spirits. During most of his illness he had been silent, moody.
"Jennie, I'll be riding off soon," he said, one evening. "I
can't impose on this good man Andrews much longer. I'll never
forget his kindness. His wife, too--she's been so good to us.
The Lone Star Ranger |
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 Smalcald Articles by Dr. Martin Luther: order that we may [thus] be protected against the enthusiasts,
i.e., spirits who boast that they have the Spirit without and
before the Word, and accordingly judge Scripture or the spoken
Word, and explain and stretch it at their pleasure, as Muenzer
did, and many still do at the present day, who wish to be
acute judges between the Spirit and the letter, and yet know
not what they say or declare. For [indeed] the Papacy also is
nothing but sheer enthusiasm, by which the Pope boasts that
all rights exist in the shrine of his heart, and whatever he
decides and commands with [in] his church is spirit and right,
even though it is above and contrary to Scripture and the
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