| 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 Good Works by Dr. Martin Luther: is done in external works than under this head. It is a matter
so high that few understand it, and, besides, adorned with God's
Name and power, dangerous to touch. But the prophets of old were
masters in this; also the apostles, especially St. Paul, who did
not allow it to trouble them whether the highest or the lowest
priest had said it, or had done it in God's Name or in his own.
They looked on the works and words, and held them up to God's
Commandment, no matter whether big John or little Nick said it,
or whether they had done it in God's Name or in man's. And for
this they had to die, and of such dying there would be much more
to say in our time, for things are much worse now. But Christ and
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from On the Duty of Civil Disobedience by Henry David Thoreau: This, according to Paley, would be inconvenient.
But he that would save his life, in such a case, shall lose it.
This people must cease to hold slaves, and to make war
on Mexico, though it cost them their existence as a people.
In their practice, nations agree with Paley; but does
anyone think that Massachusetts does exactly what is right
at the present crisis?
"A drab of stat,
a cloth-o'-silver slut,
To have her train borne up,
and her soul trail in the dirt."
On the Duty of Civil Disobedience |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Master and Man by Leo Tolstoy: which were almost immediately brought back to him scarcely
burnt at all, and which he put away in the store-chest. He
began to pray to that same Nicholas the Wonder-Worker to save
him, promising him a thanksgiving service and some candles.
But he clearly and indubitably realized that the icon, its
frame, the candles, the priest, and the thanksgiving service,
though very important and necessary in church, could do nothing
for him here, and that there was and could be no connexion
between those candles and services and his present disastrous
plight. 'I must not despair,' he thought. 'I must follow the
horse's track before it is snowed under. He will lead me out,
Master and Man |
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 Dunwich Horror by H. P. Lovecraft: faintly.
'They didn't git him,' he muttered in his heavy bass
voice.
Wilbur was by this time a scholar of really tremendous
erudition in his one-sided way, and was quietly known by correspondence
to many librarians in distant places where rare and forbidden
books of old days are kept. He was more and more hated and dreaded
around Dunwich because of certain youthful disappearances which
suspicion laid vaguely at his door; but was always able to silence
inquiry through fear or through use of that fund of old-time gold
which still, as in his grandfather's time, went forth regularly
The Dunwich Horror |
