| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Emma by Jane Austen: grow more worthy of him, whose intentions and judgment had been
ever so superior to her own. Nothing, but that the lessons
of her past folly might teach her humility and circumspection in future.
Serious she was, very serious in her thankfulness, and in her resolutions;
and yet there was no preventing a laugh, sometimes in the very midst
of them. She must laugh at such a close! Such an end of the doleful
disappointment of five weeks back! Such a heart--such a Harriet!
Now there would be pleasure in her returning--Every thing would
be a pleasure. It would be a great pleasure to know Robert Martin.
High in the rank of her most serious and heartfelt felicities,
was the reflection that all necessity of concealment from
Emma |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Blix by Frank Norris: no name for such things, no name for the mystery that spans the
interval between man and woman--the mystery that bears no relation
to their love for each other, but that is something better than
love, and whose coming savors of the miraculous.
The afternoon had waned and the sun had begun to set when Blix
rose.
"We should be going, Condy," she told him.
They started up the hill, and Condy said: "I feel as though I had
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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 Smalcald Articles by Dr. Martin Luther: so as to be accomplished, but represses and restrains it so
that it must not do what it wishes. But if it does what it
wishes, the Holy Ghost and faith are [certainly] not present.
For St. John says, 1 Ep. 3, 9: Whosoever is born of God doth
not commit sin,... and he cannot sin. And yet it is also the
truth when the same St. John says, 1 Ep. 1, 8: If we say that
we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in
us.
IV. Of the Gospel.
We will now return to the Gospel, which not merely in one way
gives us counsel and aid against sin; for God is
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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 An Inland Voyage by Robert Louis Stevenson: became in any way perspicuous, it lost all merit in my eyes; only a
single scene, or, as is the way with these FEUILLETONS, half a
scene, without antecedent or consequence, like a piece of a dream,
had the knack of fixing my interest. The less I saw of the novel,
the better I liked it: a pregnant reflection. But for the most
part, as I said, we neither of us read anything in the world, and
employed the very little while we were awake between bed and dinner
in poring upon maps. I have always been fond of maps, and can
voyage in an atlas with the greatest enjoyment. The names of
places are singularly inviting; the contour of coasts and rivers is
enthralling to the eye; and to hit, in a map, upon some place you
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