| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Smalcald Articles by Dr. Martin Luther: II. Of the Law
Here we hold that the Law was given by God, first, to restrain
sin by threats and the dread of punishment, and by the promise
and offer of grace and benefit. But all this miscarried on
account of the wickedness which sin has wrought in man. For
thereby a part [some] were rendered worse, those, namely, who
are hostile to [hate] the Law, because it forbids what they
like to do, and enjoins what they do not like to do.
Therefore, wherever they can escape [if they were not
restrained by] punishment, they [would] do more against the
Law than before. These, then, are the rude and wicked
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy: good-night, retired.
The next morning Sue, whose nervousness intensified with the hours,
took Jude privately into the sitting-room before starting.
"Jude, I want you to kiss me, as a lover, incorporeally," she said,
tremulously nestling up to him, with damp lashes. "It won't be ever
like this any more, will it! I wish we hadn't begun the business.
But I suppose we must go on. How horrid that story was last night!
It spoilt my thoughts of to-day. It makes me feel as if a tragic doom
overhung our family, as it did the house of Atreus."
"Or the house of Jeroboam," said the quondam theologian.
"Yes. And it seems awful temerity in us two to go marrying!
Jude the Obscure |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Eugenie Grandet by Honore de Balzac: would have liked to touch the soft kid of the delicate gloves. She
envied Charles his small hands, his complexion, the freshness and
refinement of his features. In short,--if it is possible to sum up the
effect this elegant being produced upon an ignorant young girl
perpetually employed in darning stockings or in mending her father's
clothes, and whose life flowed on beneath these unclean rafters,
seeing none but occasional passers along the silent street,--this
vision of her cousin roused in her soul an emotion of delicate desire
like that inspired in a young man by the fanciful pictures of women
drawn by Westall for the English "Keepsakes," and that engraved by the
Findens with so clever a tool that we fear, as we breathe upon the
Eugenie Grandet |
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 Woodlanders by Thomas Hardy: Revelation. He therefore deposited the collar by a tree, and hid
himself behind it. The horseman came on, and the youth, whose
eyes were as keen as telescopes, to his great relief recognized
the doctor.
As Melbury surmised, Fitzpiers had in the darkness taken Blossom
for Darling, and he had not discovered his mistake when he came up
opposite the boy, though he was somewhat surprised at the
liveliness of his usually placid mare. The only other pair of
eyes on the spot whose vision was keen as the young carter's were
those of the horse; and, with that strongly conservative objection
to the unusual which animals show, Blossom, on eying the collar
The Woodlanders |
