| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Voyage Out by Virginia Woolf: man-of-war, and had seen a great many processions and religious festivals,
which were so beautiful that Mrs. Ambrose couldn't conceive why,
if people must have a religion, they didn't all become Roman Catholics.
They had made several expeditions though none of any length. It was
worth coming if only for the sake of the flowering trees which grew
wild quite near the house, and the amazing colours of sea and earth.
The earth, instead of being brown, was red, purple, green. "You won't
believe me," she added, "there is no colour like it in England."
She adopted, indeed, a condescending tone towards that poor island,
which was now advancing chilly crocuses and nipped violets in nooks,
in copses, in cosy corners, tended by rosy old gardeners in mufflers,
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Cousin Pons by Honore de Balzac: care to sell your collection of pictures, I would give you five or six
hundred thousand francs--"
"Ah!" said Pons; he had no idea that he was so rich. "But they are my
great pleasure in life, and I could not bring myself to part with
them. I could only sell my collection to be delivered after my death."
"Very well. We shall see."
"Here we have two affairs afoot!" said Pons; he was thinking only of
the marriage.
Brunner shook hands and drove away in his splendid carriage. Pons
watched it out of sight. He did not notice that Remonencq was smoking
his pipe in the doorway.
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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 Alcibiades I by Plato: difficulty in them, and therefore they leave them, and consider which
course of action will be most expedient; for there is a difference between
justice and expediency. Many persons have done great wrong and profited by
their injustice; others have done rightly and come to no good.
SOCRATES: Well, but granting that the just and the expedient are ever so
much opposed, you surely do not imagine that you know what is expedient for
mankind, or why a thing is expedient?
ALCIBIADES: Why not, Socrates?--But I am not going to be asked again from
whom I learned, or when I made the discovery.
SOCRATES: What a way you have! When you make a mistake which might be
refuted by a previous argument, you insist on having a new and different
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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 The Large Catechism by Dr. Martin Luther: and especially urge the Ten Commandments, the Creed, and the Lord's
Prayer, and thus direct our whole life and being according to God's
Word. At whatever time, then, this is being observed and practiced,
there a true holy day is being kept; otherwise it shall not be called a
Christians' holy day. For, indeed, non-Christians can also cease from
work and be idle, just as the entire swarm of our ecclesiastics, who
stand daily in the churches, singing, and ringing bells but keeping no
holy day holy, because they neither preach nor practices God's Word,
but teach and live contrary to it.
For the Word of God is the sanctuary above all sanctuaries, yea, the
only one which we Christians know and have. For though we had the bones
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