| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Modeste Mignon by Honore de Balzac: teaching the hand to be jealous of the eye. Beneath her hair, which
was soft and feathery and worn in many curls, the brow, which might
have been traced by a compass so pure was its modelling, shone forth
discreet, calm to placidity, and yet luminous with thought: when and
where could another be found so transparently clear or more
exquisitely smooth? It seemed, like a pearl, to have its orient. The
eyes, of a blue verging on gray and limpid as the eyes of a child, had
all the mischief, all the innocence of childhood, and they harmonized
well with the arch of the eyebrows, faintly indicated by lines like
those made with a brush on Chinese faces. This candor of the soul was
still further evidenced around the eyes, in their corners, and about
Modeste Mignon |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Light of Western Stars by Zane Grey: great moment, which you might not care to have any one hear."
Wonderingly Madeline inclined her head. The padre gently closed
one door and then the others.
"Senora, I have come to disclose a secret--my own sinfulness in
keeping it--and to implore your pardon. Do you remember that
night Senor Stewart dragged me before you in the waiting-room at
El Cajon?"
"Yes," replied Madeline.
"Senora, since that night you have been Senor Stewart's wife!"
Madeline became as motionless as stone. She seemed to feel
nothing, only to hear.
The Light of Western Stars |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Girl with the Golden Eyes by Honore de Balzac: given her. She is a young creature--not more than twenty-two, and I
have seen her here in the time of the Bourbons, but with a woman who
was worth a hundred thousand of her."
"Silence, Paul! It is impossible for any woman to surpass this girl;
she is like the cat who rubs herself against your legs; a white girl
with ash-colored hair, delicate in appearance, but who must have downy
threads on the third phalanx of her fingers, and all along her cheeks
a white down whose line, luminous on fine days, begins at her ears and
loses itself on her neck."
"Ah, the other, my dear De Marsay! She has black eyes which have never
wept, but which burn; black eyebrows which meet and give her an air of
The Girl with the Golden Eyes |
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: themselves show. But if it be impossible to obtain a
mitigation of such observances as cannot be kept without sin,
we are bound to follow the apostolic rule, Acts 5, 29, which
commands us to obey God rather than men.
Peter, 1 Pet. 5, 3, forbids bishops to be lords, and to rule
over the churches. It is not our design now to wrest the
government from the bishops, but this one thing is asked,
namely, that they allow the Gospel to be purely taught, and
that they relax some few observances which cannot be kept
without sin. But if they make no concession, it is for them to
see how they shall give account to God for furnishing, by
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