| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from An Open Letter on Translating by Dr. Martin Luther: On the other question as to whether the departed saints intercede
for us. For the present I am only going to give a brief answer as
I am considering publishing a sermon on the beloved angels in
which I will respond more fully on this matter (God willing).
First, you know that under the papacy it is not only taught that
the saints in heaven intercede for us - even though we cannot know
this as the Scripture does not tell us such - but the saints have
been made into gods, and that they are to be our patrons to whom
we should call. Some of them have never existed! To each of these
saints a particular power and might has been given - one over
fire, another over water, another over pestilence, fever and all
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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 Troll Garden and Selected Stories by Willa Cather: and there was no gainsaying that she carried her five-and-thirty
years splendidly. Her figure had never grown matronly, and her
face was of the sort that does not show wear. Its blond tints
were as fresh and enduring as enamel--and quite as hard. Its
usual expression was one of tense, often strained, animation,
which compressed her lips nervously. A perfect scream of
animation, Miss Broadwood had called it, created and maintained
by sheer, indomitable force of will. Flavia's appearance on any
scene whatever made a ripple, caused a certain agitation and
recognition, and, among impressionable people, a certain
uneasiness, For all her sparkling assurance of manner, Flavia
The Troll Garden and Selected Stories |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from First Inaugural Address by Abraham Lincoln: The great body of the people abide by the dry legal obligation
in both cases, and a few break over in each. This, I think,
cannot be perfectly cured; and it would be worse in both cases
AFTER the separation of the sections than BEFORE. The foreign
slave-trade, now imperfectly suppressed, would be ultimately revived,
without restriction, in one section, while fugitive slaves,
now only partially surrendered, would not be surrendered
at all by the other.
Physically speaking, we cannot separate. We cannot remove our
respective sections from each other, nor build an impassable wall
between them. A husband and wife may be divorced, and go out of
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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 Z. Marcas by Honore de Balzac: discourse with slices of bread spread with cheese and washed down with
wine. All the tobacco was burned out. Now and then the hackney coaches
clattering across the Place de l'Odeon, or the omnibuses toiling past,
sent up their dull rumbling, as if to remind us that Paris was still
close to us.
His family lived at Vitre; his father and mother had fifteen hundred
francs a year in the funds. He had received an education gratis in a
Seminary, but had refused to enter the priesthood. He felt in himself
the fires of immense ambition, and had come to Paris on foot at the
age of twenty, the possessor of two hundred francs. He had studied the
law, working in an attorney's office, where he had risen to be
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