The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Concerning Christian Liberty by Martin Luther: his own impotence for good and may despair of his own strength.
For this reason they are called the Old Testament, and are so.
For example, "Thou shalt not covet," is a precept by which we are
all convicted of sin, since no man can help coveting, whatever
efforts to the contrary he may make. In order therefore that he
may fulfil the precept, and not covet, he is constrained to
despair of himself and to seek elsewhere and through another the
help which he cannot find in himself; as it is said, "O Israel,
thou hast destroyed thyself; but in Me is thine help" (Hosea
xiii. 9). Now what is done by this one precept is done by all;
for all are equally impossible of fulfilment by us.
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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 The Death of the Lion by Henry James: commission from THE TATLER, whose most prominent department,
'Smatter and Chatter' - I dare say you've often enjoyed it -
attracts such attention. I was honoured only last week, as a
representative of THE TATLER, with the confidence of Guy
Walsingham, the brilliant author of 'Obsessions.' She pronounced
herself thoroughly pleased with my sketch of her method; she went
so far as to say that I had made her genius more comprehensible
even to herself."
Neil Paraday had dropped on the garden-bench and sat there at once
detached and confounded; he looked hard at a bare spot in the lawn,
as if with an anxiety that had suddenly made him grave. His
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