| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Altar of the Dead by Henry James: it was neither for her nor by her that they had been called into
being. Then he understood that it was essentially in his own soul
the revival had taken place, and that in the air of this soul they
were now unable to breathe. The candles might mechanically burn,
but each of them had lost its lustre. The church had become a
void; it was his presence, her presence, their common presence,
that had made the indispensable medium. If anything was wrong
everything was - her silence spoiled the tune.
Then when three months were gone he felt so lonely that he went
back; reflecting that as they had been his best society for years
his Dead perhaps wouldn't let him forsake them without doing
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Concerning Christian Liberty by Martin Luther: rich and pious Husband, takes as a wife a needy and impious
harlot, redeeming her from all her evils and supplying her with
all His good things. It is impossible now that her sins should
destroy her, since they have been laid upon Christ and swallowed
up in Him, and since she has in her Husband Christ a
righteousness which she may claim as her own, and which she can
set up with confidence against all her sins, against death and
hell, saying, "If I have sinned, my Christ, in whom I believe,
has not sinned; all mine is His, and all His is mine," as it is
written, "My beloved is mine, and I am His" (Cant. ii. 16). This
is what Paul says: "Thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory
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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 'Twixt Land & Sea by Joseph Conrad: thought: Shall I be able to get a charter soon? Time's money. . .
. Will that Jacobus really put good business in my way? I must go
and see him in a day or two.
Don't imagine that I pursued these thoughts with any precision.
They pursued me rather: vague, shadowy, restless, shamefaced.
Theirs was a callous, abominable, almost revolting, pertinacity.
And it was the presence of that pertinacious ship-chandler which
had started them. He stood mournfully amongst our little band of
men from the sea, and I was angry at his presence, which,
suggesting his brother the merchant, had caused me to become
outrageous to myself. For indeed I had preserved some decency of
'Twixt Land & Sea |
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 Wyoming by William MacLeod Raine: was a mystery about him, else how was it possible for two so
distinct personalities to dwell together in the same body.
She hated him with all her lusty young will; not only for what he
was, but also for what she had been disappointed in not finding
him after her first instinctive liking. Yet it was with an odd
little thrill that she ran down again into the coulee where her
prosaic life had found its first real adventure. He might be all
they said, but nothing could wipe out the facts that she had
offered her life to save his, and that he had lent her his body
as a living shield for one exhilarating moment of danger.
As she reached the hill summit beyond the coulee, Helen Messiter
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