The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Resurrection by Leo Tolstoy: saucer and golden cup. It was supposed that, at this point, the
bread and the wine turned into flesh and blood; therefore, this
part of the service was performed with the greatest solemnity.
"Now, to the blessed, most pure, and most holy Mother of God,"
the priest cried from the golden partition which divided part of
the church from the rest, and the choir began solemnly to sing
that it was very right to glorify the Virgin Mary, who had borne
Christ without losing her virginity, and was therefore worthy of
greater honour than some kind of cherubim, and greater glory than
some kind of seraphim. After this the transformation was
considered accomplished, and the priest having taken the napkin
Resurrection |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from A Tramp Abroad by Mark Twain: countries in mud and slush half-wheel deep; but after
Napoleon had floundered through a conquered kingdom he
generally arranged things so that the rest of the world
could follow dry-shod.
We went on climbing, higher and higher, and curving hither
and thither, in the shade of noble woods, and with a rich
variety and profusion of wild flowers all about us;
and glimpses of rounded grassy backbones below us occupied
by trim chalets and nibbling sheep, and other glimpses
of far lower altitudes, where distance diminished the
chalets to toys and obliterated the sheep altogether;
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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 King of the Golden River by John Ruskin: gold, from precipice to precipice, with the double arch of a broad
purple rainbow stretched across it, flushing and fading alternately
in the wreaths of spray.
"Ah!" said Gluck aloud, after he had looked at it for a
little while, "if that river were really all gold, what a nice
thing it would be."
"No, it wouldn't, Gluck," said a clear, metallic voice close
at his ear.
"Bless me, what's that?" exclaimed Gluck, jumping up. There
was nobody there. He looked round the room and under the table and
a great many times behind him, but there was certainly nobody there,
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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 Christ in Flanders by Honore de Balzac: sparkled as if it had been built of precious stones set cunningly. In
contrast to the roof with its alternating spaces of whiteness and
color, the two aisles lay to right and left in shadow so deep that the
faint gray outlines of their hundred shafts were scarcely visible in
the gloom. I gazed at the marvelous arcades, the scroll-work, the
garlands, the curving lines, and arabesques interwoven and interlaced,
and strangely lighted, until by sheer dint of gazing my perceptions
became confused, and I stood upon the borderland between illusion and
reality, taken in the snare set for the eyes, and almost light-headed
by reason of the multitudinous changes of the shapes about me.
Imperceptibly a mist gathered about the carven stonework, and I only
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