| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Augsburg Confession by Philip Melanchthon: Augustine also admonishes his readers concerning the word
"faith," and teaches that the term "faith" is accepted in the
Scriptures not for knowledge such as is in the ungodly but for
confidence which consoles and encourages the terrified mind.
Furthermore, it is taught on our part that it is necessary to
do good works, not that we should trust to merit grace by
them, but because it is the will of God. It is only by faith
that forgiveness of sins is apprehended, and that, for
nothing. And because through faith the Holy Ghost is received,
hearts are renewed and endowed with new affections, so as to
be able to bring forth good works. For Ambrose says: Faith is
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge by Ambrose Bierce: He thanked her ceremoniously, bowed to her husband and rode
away. An hour later, after nightfall, he repassed the
plantation, going northward in the direction from which he
had come. He was a Federal scout.
III
As Peyton Fahrquhar fell straight downward through the
bridge he lost consciousness and was as one already dead.
From this state he was awakened -- ages later, it seemed to
him -- by the pain of a sharp pressure upon his throat,
followed by a sense of suffocation. Keen, poignant agonies
seemed to shoot from his neck downward through every fiber of
An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Taras Bulba and Other Tales by Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol: rope. The weary, dust-covered warriors ceased not to threaten, nor the
most zealous on both sides to exchange fierce remarks.
At length all dispersed. Some, weary with battle, stretched themselves
out to rest; others sprinkled their wounds with earth, and bound them
with kerchiefs and rich stuffs captured from the enemy. Others, who
were fresher, began to inspect the corpses and to pay them the last
honours. They dug graves with swords and spears, brought earth in
their caps and the skirts of their garments, laid the Cossacks' bodies
out decently, and covered them up in order that the ravens and eagles
might not claw out their eyes. But binding the bodies of the Lyakhs,
as they came to hand, to the tails of horses, they let these loose on
Taras Bulba and Other Tales |
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 Weir of Hermiston by Robert Louis Stevenson: of the indifferent, in the seclusion of his shyness. He grew up
handsome, with an open, speaking countenance, with graceful, youthful
ways; he was clever, he took prizes, he shone in the Speculative
Society. It should seem he must become the centre of a crowd of
friends; but something that was in part the delicacy of his mother, in
part the austerity of his father, held him aloof from all. It is a
fact, and a strange one, that among his contemporaries Hermiston's son
was thought to be a chip of the old block. "You're a friend of Archie
Weir's?" said one to Frank Innes; and Innes replied, with his usual
flippancy and more than his usual insight: "I know Weir. but I never met
Archie." No one had met Archie, a malady most incident to only sons.
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