| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Maitre Cornelius by Honore de Balzac: drawn upon himself the enmity of Charles, Duke of Burgundy, found
refuge and protection at the court of Louis XI. The king was conscious
of the advantages he could gain from a man connected with all the
principal commercial houses of Flanders, Venice, and the Levant; he
naturalized, ennobled, and flattered Maitre Cornelius; all of which
was rarely done by Louis XI. The monarch pleased the Fleming as much
as the Fleming pleased the monarch. Wily, distrustful, and miserly;
equally politic, equally learned; superior, both of them, to their
epoch; understanding each other marvellously; they discarded and
resumed with equal facility, the one his conscience, the other his
religion; they loved the same Virgin, one by conviction, the other by
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar by Edgar Rice Burroughs: of Mugambi. Tarzan might have followed them; but no
ordinary mortal could perceive them, or perceiving,
translate.
The black, now strengthened and refreshed by his rest,
felt ready to set out again for Waziri, and finding
himself another knob-stick, turned his back upon the
river and plunged into the mazes of the jungle.
As Taglat struggled with the bonds which secured the
ankles and wrists of his captive, the great lion that
eyed the two from behind a nearby clump of bushes
wormed closer to his intended prey.
Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Madam How and Lady Why by Charles Kingsley: does not always pour them out in the open air. Sometimes she
pours them out at the bottom of the sea, as she did in the north
of Ireland and the south-west of Scotland, when she made the
Giant's Causeway, and Fingal's Cave in Staffa too, at the bottom
of the old chalk ocean, ages and ages since. Sometimes she
squirts them out between the layers of rock, or into cracks which
the earthquakes have made, in what are called trap dykes, of which
there are plenty to be seen in Scotland, and in Wales likewise.
And then she lifts the earth up from the bottom of the sea, and
sets the rain to wash away all the soft rocks, till the hard lava
stands out in great hills upon the surface of the ground. Then
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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 Large Catechism by Dr. Martin Luther: a church was considered desecrated when a murder or any other crime had
been committed in it, or when a pyx or relic was desecrated, as being
holy in themselves, yet become unholy in use. Thus this point is easy
and clear if only the language is understood, that to hallow is the
same as in our idiom to praise, magnify, and honor both in word and
deed.
Here, now, learn how great need there is of such prayer. For because we
see how full the world is of sects and false teachers, who all wear the
holy name as a cover and sham for their doctrines of devils, we ought
by all means to pray without ceasing, and to cry and call upon God
against all such as preach and believe falsely and whatever opposes and
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