| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Soul of a Bishop by H. G. Wells: "I don't see why not."
The mother was still doubtful, but she was in no mood to cross
her husband that night. "It's an exceptional occasion," said
Scrope, and Eleanor knew her point was won. She became radiant.
"I can be late?"
Scrope handed her his latch-key without a word.
"You dear kind things," she said, and went to the door. Then
turned and came back and kissed her father. Then she kissed her
mother. "It is so kind of you," she said, and was gone. They
listened to her passage through a storm of questions in the
dining-room.
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Secret Adversary by Agatha Christie: crowd round me shoving and pushing me just the way I didn't want
to go. There was something uncanny and frightening about it. In
the end I found myself in a carriage with Mrs. Vandemeyer after
all. I went out into the corridor, but all the other carriages
were full, so I had to go back and sit down. I consoled myself
with the thought that there were other people in the
carriage--there was quite a nice-looking man and his wife sitting
just opposite. So I felt almost happy about it until just outside
London. I had leaned back and closed my eyes. I guess they
thought I was asleep, but my eyes weren't quite shut, and
suddenly I saw the nice-looking man get something out of his bag
Secret Adversary |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Child of Storm by H. Rider Haggard: "Is it so?" replied Umbelazi indifferently. "Then if the King commands,
and the King's daughter desires, what more is there to be said?"
"Much, I think," broke in Cetewayo. "I hold that it is out of place
that this little man, who has but conquered a little tribe by borrowing
the wit of Macumazahn here, should be rewarded not only with a
chieftainship, but with the hand of the wisest and most beautiful of the
King's daughters, even though Umbelazi," he added, with a sneer, "should
be willing to throw him his own sister like a bone to a passing dog."
"Who threw the bone, Cetewayo?" asked Umbelazi, awaking out of his
indifference. "Was it the King, or was it I, who never heard of the
matter till this moment? And who are we that we should question the
Child of Storm |
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 The Varieties of Religious Experience by William James: adoration--we must go to autobiographies, or other individual
documents.
[181] That of the earlier Jesuit, Rodriguez, which has been
translated into all languages, is one of the best known. A
convenient modern manual, very well put together, is L'Ascetique
Chretienne, by M. J. Ribet, Paris, Poussielgue, nouvelle edition,
1898.
Saint John of the Cross, a Spanish mystic who flourished--or
rather who existed, for there was little that suggested
flourishing about him--in the sixteenth century, will supply a
passage suitable for our purpose.
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