| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Varieties of Religious Experience by William James: mere velleitates, whimsies. They exist on the remoter outskirts
of the mind, and the real self of the man, the centre of his
energies, is occupied with an entirely different system. As life
goes on, there is a constant change of our interests, and a
consequent change of place in our systems of ideas, from more
central to more peripheral, and from more peripheral to more
central parts of consciousness. I remember, for instance, that
one evening when I was a youth, my father read aloud from a
Boston newspaper that part of Lord Gifford's will which founded
these four lectureships. At that time I did not think of being a
teacher of philosophy, and what I listened to was as remote from
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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 Country of the Pointed Firs by Sarah Orne Jewett: hers was always the governing mind, and the final command, "Take of
hy'sop one handful" (or whatever herb it was), was received in
respectful silence. One afternoon, when I had listened,--it was
impossible not to listen, with cottonless ears,--and then laughed
and listened again, with an idle pen in my hand, during a
particularly spirited and personal conversation, I reached for my
hat, and, taking blotting-book and all under my arm, I resolutely
fled further temptation, and walked out past the fragrant green
garden and up the dusty road. The way went straight uphill, and
presently I stopped and turned to look back.
The tide was in, the wide harbor was surrounded by its dark
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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 Wheels of Chance by H. G. Wells: Unicorn, after propping his machine outside the door, and, as he
cooled down and smoked his Red Herring cigarette while the cold
meat was getting ready, he saw from the window the Young Lady in
Grey and the other man in brown, entering Ripley.
They filled him with apprehension by looking at the house which
sheltered him, but the sight of his bicycle, propped in a drunk
and incapable attitude against the doorway, humping its rackety
mud-guard and leering at them with its darkened lantern eye,
drove them away--so it seemed to Mr. Hoopdriver--to the spacious
swallow of the Golden Dragon. The young lady was riding very
slowly, but the other man in brown had a bad puncture and was
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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 Soul of a Bishop by H. G. Wells: fearful, and suspicious--have sought in every age to save the
precious gift of religion by putting it into a prison of formulae
and asseverations. Bear that in mind when you are pressed to
definition. It is as if you made a box hermetically sealed to
save the treasure of a fresh breeze from the sea. But they have
sought out exact statements and tortuous explanations of the
plain truth of God, they have tried to take down God in writing,
to commit him to documents, to embalm his living faith as though
it would otherwise corrupt. So they have lost God and fallen into
endless differences, disputes, violence, and darkness about
insignificant things. They have divided religion between this
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