| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Intentions by Oscar Wilde: foul sore and festering wound. He writes lurid little tragedies in
which everybody is ridiculous; bitter comedies at which one cannot
laugh for very tears. M. Zola, true to the lofty principle that he
lays down in one of his pronunciamientos on literature, "L'homme de
genie n'a jamais d'esprit," is determined to show that, if he has
not got genius, he can at least be dull. And how well he succeeds!
He is not without power. Indeed at times, as in GERMINAL, there is
something almost epic in his work. But his work is entirely wrong
from beginning to end, and wrong not on the ground of morals, but
on the ground of art. From any ethical standpoint it is just what
it should be. The author is perfectly truthful, and describes
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Facino Cane by Honore de Balzac: faces were of the ordinary type among the blind--earnest, attentive,
and grave. Not so the clarionet player; any artist or philosopher must
have come to a stop at the sight of him.
Picture to yourself a plaster mask of Dante in the red lamplight, with
a forest of silver-white hair above the brows. Blindness intensified
the expression of bitterness and sorrow in that grand face of his; the
dead eyes were lighted up, as it were, by a thought within that broke
forth like a burning flame, lit by one sole insatiable desire, written
large in vigorous characters upon an arching brow scored across with
as many lines as an old stone wall.
The old man was playing at random, without the slightest regard for
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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 Court Life in China by Isaac Taylor Headland: the Emperor Hsien Feng, and our little Miss Chao was taken into
the palace, her parents, like many others, had every reason to
consider it a piece of ill-fortune which had visited their home.
The future was veiled from them. The Forbidden City, surrounded
by its great crenelated wall, may have seemed more like a prison
than like a palace. True, they had other children, and she was
"only a girl, but even girls are a small blessing," as they tell
us in their proverbs. She had grown old enough to be useful in
the home, and they no doubt had cherished plans of betrothing her
to the son of some merchant or official who would add wealth or
honour to their family. Neither father nor mother, brother nor
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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 Commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians by Martin Luther: manifest in them, for God hath showed it unto them. For the invisible things
of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen." (Romans 1:19, 20.)
Furthermore, the different religions to be found among all nations at all
times bear witness to the fact that all men have a certain intuitive
knowledge of God.
If all men know God how can Paul say that the Galatians did not know God
prior to the hearing of the Gospel? I answer: There is a twofold knowledge of
God, general and particular. All men have the general and instinctive
recognition that there is a God who created heaven and earth, who is just and
holy, and who punishes the wicked. How God feels about us, what His
intentions are, what He will do for us, or how He will save us, that men
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