| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from A Treatise on Parents and Children by George Bernard Shaw: and to mix with children of their own age. This is natural enough.
When you have preached at and punished a boy until he is a moral
cripple, you are as much hampered by him as by a physical cripple; and
as you do not intend to have him on your hands all your life, and are
generally rather impatient for the day when he will earn his own
living and leave you to attend to yourself, you sooner or later begin
to talk to him about the need for self-reliance, learning to think,
and so forth, with the result that your victim, bewildered by your
inconsistency, concludes that there is no use trying to please you,
and falls into an attitude of sulky resentment. Which is an
additional inducement to pack him off to school.
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Large Catechism by Dr. Martin Luther: there. Now this is plain and clear from the words just mentioned: This
is My body and blood, given and shed FOR YOU, for the remission of
sins. Briefly that is as much as to say: For this reason we go to the
Sacrament because there we receive such a treasure by and in which we
obtain forgiveness of sins. Why so? Because the words stand here and
give us this; for on this account He bids me eat and drink, that it may
be my own and may benefit me, as a sure pledge and token, yea, the very
same treasure that is appointed for me against my sins, death, and
every calamity.
On this account it is indeed called a food of souls, which nourishes
and strengthens the new man. For by Baptism we are first born anew; but
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| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Secret Places of the Heart by H. G. Wells: through this last experience of ineffectual invocation, this
appeal to the fading shadow of a vanished God. In the night.
In utter loneliness. Answer me! Speak to me! Does he answer?
In the silence you hear the little blood vessels whisper in
your ears. You see a faint glow of colour on the
darkness. . . . "
Dr. Martineau sat without a word.
"I can believe that over all things Righteousness rules. I
can believe that. But Righteousness is not friendliness nor
mercy nor comfort nor any such dear and intimate things. This
cuddling up to Righteousness! It is a dream, a delusion and a
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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 Russia in 1919 by Arthur Ransome: even as things were they could certainly fight for a year.
THE PROPOSED DELEGATION FROM BERNE
I do not remember the exact date when the proposal of the
Berne International Conference to send a Commission of
Enquiry to Russia became known in Moscow, but on
February 20th everybody who came to see me was talking
about it, and from that date the question as to the reception
of the delegates was the most urgently debated of all political
subjects. Chicherin had replied immediately to Berne,
saying that "though they did not consider the Berne
Conference either socialist or in any degree representative of
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