| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Margret Howth: A Story of To-day by Rebecca Harding Davis: countless aching hearts, then was silent, and a single voice
swept over the moors in a long, lamentable cry:--"Thou that
takest away the sins of the world, have mercy upon us!"
The men stood silent, until the hush was broken by a low
murmur:--"For Thou only art holy." Holmes had taken off his hat,
unconscious that he did it; he put it on slowly, and walked on.
What was it that Knowles had said to him once about mean and
selfish taints on his divine soul? "For Thou only art holy:" if
there were truth in that!
"How quiet it is!" he said, as they stopped to leave him. It
was,--a breathless quiet; the great streets of the town behind
Margret Howth: A Story of To-day |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from A Kidnapped Santa Claus by L. Frank Baum: the stout rope. And then they carried the kidnapped Santa Claus away
to their mountain, where they thrust the prisoner into a secret cave
and chained him to the rocky wall so that he could not escape.
"Ha, ha!" laughed the Daemons, rubbing their hands together with cruel
glee. "What will the children do now? How they will cry and scold
and storm when they find there are no toys in their stockings and no
gifts on their Christmas trees! And what a lot of punishment they
will receive from their parents, and how they will flock to our Caves
of Selfishness, and Envy, and Hatred, and Malice! We have done a
mighty clever thing, we Daemons of the Caves!"
Now it so chanced that on this Christmas Eve the good Santa Claus had
A Kidnapped Santa Claus |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from House of Mirth by Edith Wharton: Mrs. Peniston gave another cry. "George Dorset? Is there any one
else? I should like to know the worst, if you please."
"Don't put it in that way, cousin Julia. Lately Lily has been a
good deal with the Dorsets, and he seems to admire her--but of
course that's only natural. And I'm sure there is no truth in the
horrid things people say; but she HAS been spending a great deal
of money this winter. Evie Van Osburgh was at Celeste's
ordering her trousseau the other day--yes, the marriage takes
place next month--and she told me that Celeste showed her the
most exquisite things she was just sending home to Lily. And
people say that Judy Trenor has quarrelled with her on account of
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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 De Profundis by Oscar Wilde: has been perfected,' was exactly as St. John tells us it was:
[Greek text which cannot be reproduced] - no more.
While in reading the Gospels - particularly that of St. John
himself, or whatever early Gnostic took his name and mantle - I see
the continual assertion of the imagination as the basis of all
spiritual and material life, I see also that to Christ imagination
was simply a form of love, and that to him love was lord in the
fullest meaning of the phrase. Some six weeks ago I was allowed by
the doctor to have white bread to eat instead of the coarse black
or brown bread of ordinary prison fare. It is a great delicacy.
It will sound strange that dry bread could possibly be a delicacy
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