| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Confidence by Henry James: with an animated eye.
"You forget," his friend said, "that though I know, thank heaven,
a good deal of you, I know very little of either of those girls.
I have had too little evidence."
"Yes, but you are a man who notices. That 's why I wanted you to come.
"
"I spoke only to Miss Evers."
"Yes, I know you have never spoken to Miss Vivian." Gordon Wright
stood looking at Bernard and urging his point as he pronounced
these words. Bernard felt peculiarly conscious of his gaze.
The words represented an illusion, and Longueville asked
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Lysis by Plato: punished by them, are never dearer to them than at the time when they are
being hated by them.
I think that what you say is true.
And, if so, not the lover, but the beloved, is the friend or dear one?
Yes.
And the hated one, and not the hater, is the enemy?
Clearly.
Then many men are loved by their enemies, and hated by their friends, and
are the friends of their enemies, and the enemies of their friends. Yet
how absurd, my dear friend, or indeed impossible is this paradox of a man
being an enemy to his friend or a friend to his enemy.
Lysis |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Augsburg Confession by Philip Melanchthon: Sabbath-day; also: If ye be dead with Christ from the
rudiments of the world, why, as though living in the world,
are ye subject to ordinances: Touch not, taste not, handle
not! And Peter says, Acts 15, 10: Why tempt ye God to put a
yoke upon the neck of the disciples, which neither our fathers
nor we were able to bear? But we believe that through the
grace of the Lord Jesus Christ we shall be saved, even as
they. Here Peter forbids to burden the consciences with many
rites, either of Moses or of others. And in 1 Tim. 4,1.3 Paul
calls the prohibition of meats a doctrine of devils; for it is
against the Gospel to institute or to do such works that by
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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 Taras Bulba and Other Tales by Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol: it. It's a thoroughly bad job. You'd better, when the cold winter
weather comes on, make yourself some gaiters out of it, because
stockings are not warm. The Germans invented them in order to make
more money." Petrovitch loved, on all occasions, to have a fling at
the Germans. "But it is plain you must have a new cloak."
At the word "new," all grew dark before Akakiy Akakievitch's eyes, and
everything in the room began to whirl round. The only thing he saw
clearly was the general with the paper face on the lid of Petrovitch's
snuff-box. "A new one?" said he, as if still in a dream: "why, I have
no money for that."
"Yes, a new one," said Petrovitch, with barbarous composure.
Taras Bulba and Other Tales |
