| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Jungle Tales of Tarzan by Edgar Rice Burroughs: Then came Numa, the lion, and Sabor, his mate. The other
eyes scattered to right and left before the menacing
growls of the great cats, and then the huge orbs of the
man-eaters flamed alone out of the darkness. Some of
the blacks threw themselves upon their faces and moaned;
but he who before had hurled the burning branch now
hurled another straight at the faces of the hungry lions,
and they, too, disappeared as had the lesser lights
before them. Tarzan was much interested. He saw a new
reason for the nightly fires maintained by the blacks--a
reason in addition to those connected with warmth and
The Jungle Tales of Tarzan |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Macbeth by William Shakespeare: Macd. Let vs rather
Hold fast the mortall Sword: and like good men,
Bestride our downfall Birthdome: each new Morne,
New Widdowes howle, new Orphans cry, new sorowes
Strike heauen on the face, that it resounds
As if it felt with Scotland, and yell'd out
Like Syllable of Dolour
Mal. What I beleeue, Ile waile;
What know, beleeue; and what I can redresse,
As I shall finde the time to friend: I wil.
What you haue spoke, it may be so perchance.
Macbeth |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The King of the Golden River by John Ruskin: boldness of a practiced mountaineer, yet he thought he had never
traversed so strange or so dangerous a glacier in his life. The ice
was excessively slippery, and out of all its chasms came wild sounds
of gushing water--not monotonous or low, but changeful and loud,
rising occasionally into drifting passages of wild melody, then
breaking off into short, melancholy tones or sudden shrieks
resembling those of human voices in distress or pain. The ice was
broken into thousands of confused shapes, but none, Hans thought,
like the ordinary forms of splintered ice. There seemed a curious
EXPRESSION about all their outlines--a perpetual resemblance to
living features, distorted and scornful. Myriads of deceitful
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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 Augsburg Confession by Philip Melanchthon: burdens, as that they make it mortal sin, even without offense
to others, to do manual labor on holy-days, a mortal sin to
omit the Canonical Hours, that certain foods defile the
conscience that fastings are works which appease God that sin
in a reserved case cannot be forgiven but by the authority of
him who reserved it; whereas the Canons themselves speak only
of the reserving of the ecclesiastical penalty, and not of the
reserving of the guilt.
Whence have the bishops the right to lay these traditions upon
the Church for the ensnaring of consciences, when Peter, Acts
15, 10, forbids to put a yoke upon the neck of the disciples,
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