| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Charmides and Other Poems by Oscar Wilde: For exile-wearied feet as mine to tread,
And O how salt and bitter is the bread
Which falls from this Hound's table, - better far
That I had died in the red ways of war,
Or that the gate of Florence bare my head,
Than to live thus, by all things comraded
Which seek the essence of my soul to mar.
'Curse God and die: what better hope than this?
He hath forgotten thee in all the bliss
Of his gold city, and eternal day' -
Nay peace: behind my prison's blinded bars
|
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 A treatise on Good Works by Dr. Martin Luther: power were instituted to blaspheme God's honor, to destroy
Christendom, body and soul: we are indeed in duty bound to resist
in a proper way as much as we can. And here we must do like pious
children whose parents have become insane, and first see by what
right that which has been founded for God's service in our lands,
or has been ordained to provide for our children, must be allowed
to do its work in Rome, and to lapse here, where it ought to
serve. How can we be so foolish?
Since then bishops and spiritual prelates stand idle in this
matter, offer no opposition or are afraid, and thus allow
Christendom to perish, it is our duty first of all humbly to call
|