| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from A Distinguished Provincial at Paris by Honore de Balzac: Lads, 'tis tedious waste of time
To mingle song and reason;
Folly calls for laughing rhyme,
Sense is out of season.
Let Apollo be forgot
When Bacchus fills the drinking-cup;
Any catch is good, I wot,
If good fellows take it up.
Let philosophers protest,
Let us laugh,
And quaff,
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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 Smalcald Articles by Dr. Martin Luther: Redemption. Therefore it is in no way to be tolerated.
Fifthly. The relics, in which there are found so many
falsehoods and tomfooleries concerning the bones of dogs and
horses, that even the devil has laughed at such rascalities,
ought long ago to have been condemned, even though there were
some good in them; and so much the more because they are
without the Word of God; being neither commanded nor
counseled, they are an entirely unnecessary and useless thing.
But the worst is that [they have imagined that] these relics
had to work indulgence and the forgiveness of sins [and have
revered them] as a good work and service of God, like the
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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 Mansfield Park by Jane Austen: came across her. No candle was now wanted.
The sun was yet an hour and half above the horizon.
She felt that she had, indeed, been three months there;
and the sun's rays falling strongly into the parlour,
instead of cheering, made her still more melancholy,
for sunshine appeared to her a totally different thing
in a town and in the country. Here, its power was only
a glare: a stifling, sickly glare, serving but to bring
forward stains and dirt that might otherwise have slept.
There was neither health nor gaiety in sunshine in a town.
She sat in a blaze of oppressive heat, in a cloud of
Mansfield Park |
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 Moll Flanders by Daniel Defoe: I that was a great fortune, and passed for such, was above
being asked how much my estate was; and my false friend
taking it upon a foolish hearsay, had raised it from #500 to
#5000, and by the time she came into the country she called
it #15,000. The Irishman, for such I understood him to be,
was stark mad at this bait; in short, he courted me, made me
presents, and ran in debt like a madman for the expenses of
his equipage and of his courtship. He had, to give him his due,
the appearance of an extraordinary fine gentleman; he was tall,
well-shaped, and had an extraordinary address; talked as
naturally of his park and his stables, of his horses, his gamekeepers,
Moll Flanders |
