| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Mayflower Compact: all due Submission and Obedience.
In Witness whereof we have hereunto subscribed our names
at Cape Cod the eleventh of November, in the Raigne of our
Sovereigne Lord, King James of England, France, and Ireland,
the eighteenth, and of Scotland, the fiftie-fourth,
Anno. Domini, 1620.
Mr. John Carver Mr. Stephen Hopkins
Mr. William Bradford Digery Priest
Mr. Edward Winslow Thomas Williams
Mr. William Brewster Gilbert Winslow
Isaac Allerton Edmund Margesson
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Augsburg Confession by Philip Melanchthon: there is remission of sins whenever they are converted and that
the Church ought to impart absolution to those thus returning to
repentance. Now, repentance consists properly of these two parts:
One is contrition, that is, terrors smiting the conscience through
the knowledge of sin; the other is faith, which is born of the
Gospel, or of absolution, and believes that for Christ's sake,
sins are forgiven, comforts the conscience, and delivers it from
terrors. Then good works are bound to follow, which are the fruits
of repentance.
They condemn the Anabaptists, who deny that those once justified
can lose the Holy Ghost. Also those who contend that some may
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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 Life of the Spider by J. Henri Fabre: circles to the circumference. It is merely a temporary
construction, whereof naught but the central part survives when the
Spider has set its limy meshes. The second spiral, the essential
part of the snare, proceeds, on the contrary, in serried coils from
the circumference to the centre and is composed entirely of viscous
cross-threads.
Here we have, following one after the other merely by a sudden
alteration of the machine, two volutes of an entirely different
order as regards direction, the number of whorls and intersection.
Both of them are logarithmic spirals. I see no mechanism of the
legs, be they long or short, that can account for this alteration.
The Life of the Spider |
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 Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe: land), knocked the brute down. Another of the Englishmen, running
up at the same time to help his comrade, knocked the Spaniard down;
and then two Spaniards more came in to help their man, and a third
Englishman fell in upon them. They had none of them any firearms
or any other weapons but hatchets and other tools, except this
third Englishman; he had one of my rusty cutlasses, with which he
made at the two last Spaniards, and wounded them both. This fray
set the whole family in an uproar, and more help coming in they
took the three Englishmen prisoners. The next question was, what
should be done with them? They had been so often mutinous, and
were so very furious, so desperate, and so idle withal, they knew
Robinson Crusoe |
