| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Records of a Family of Engineers by Robert Louis Stevenson: four in the morning of the 18th, the SMEATON anchored.
Agreeably to an arranged plan of operations, all hands were
called at five o'clock a.m., just as the highest part of the
Bell Rock began to show its sable head among the light
breakers, which occasionally whitened with the foaming sea.
The two boats belonging to the floating light attended the
SMEATON, to carry the artificers to the rock, as her boat
could only accommodate about six or eight sitters. Every one
was more eager than his neighbour to leap into the boats and
it required a good deal of management on the part of the
coxswains to get men unaccustomed to a boat to take their
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Democracy In America, Volume 2 by Alexis de Toqueville: desires exclude all others from the enjoyment of them. As this
aristocratic class remains fixed at the pinnacle of greatness on
which it stands, without diminution or increase, it is always
acted upon by the same wants and affected by them in the same
manner. The men of whom it is composed naturally derive from
their superior and hereditary position a taste for what is
extremely well made and lasting. This affects the general way of
thinking of the nation in relation to the arts. It often occurs,
among such a people, that even the peasant will rather go without
the object he covets, than procure it in a state of imperfection.
In aristocracies, then, the handicraftsmen work for only a
|
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from A treatise on Good Works by Dr. Martin Luther: young, and now am old; never have I seen a believing man, who
trusts God, that is a righteous man, forsaken, or his child
begging bread." Therefore the Apostle calls no other sin idolatry
except covetousness, because this sin shows most plainly that it
does not trust God for anything, expects more good from its money
than from God; and, as has been said, it is by such confidence
that God is truly honored or dishonored.
And, indeed, in this Commandment it can be clearly seen how all
good works must be done in faith; for here every one most surely
feels that the cause of covetousness is distrust and the cause
of liberality is faith. For because a man trusts God, he is
|
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 Life in the Iron-Mills by Rebecca Davis: somewhere,--somewhere, a depth of quiet and rest and love.
Looking up now, it became strangely real. The sun had sunk
quite below the hills, but his last rays struck upward, touching
the zenith. The fog had risen, and the town and river were
steeped in its thick, gray damp; but overhead, the sun-touched
smoke-clouds opened like a cleft ocean,--shifting, rolling seas
of crimson mist, waves of billowy silver veined with blood-
scarlet, inner depths unfathomable of glancing light. Wolfe's
artist-eye grew drunk with color. The gates of that other
world! Fading, flashing before him now! What, in that world of
Beauty, Content, and Right, were the petty laws, the mine and
Life in the Iron-Mills |
