| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Underdogs by Mariano Azuela: seem to move sometimes. But there's a joker! The God-
damn things have got some American fellow inside with
hand grenades by the thousand. Now you try and figure
what that means! The fight is on, see? You know how
a farmer feeds corn to his chickens, huh? Well, the Amer-
ican throws his lead bombs at the enemy just like that.
Pretty soon the whole damn field is nothing but a grave-
yard . . . dead men all over the dump . . . dead men here
. . . dead men there . . . dead men everywhere!"
Anastasio Montanez questioned the speaker more par-
ticularly. It was not long before he realized that all this
The Underdogs |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Glasses by Henry James: errand and the expression of his good green eyes.
As a worshipper at the shrine of beauty, however, he needed
explaining, especially when I found he had no acquaintance with my
brilliant model; had on the mere evidence of my picture taken, as
he said, a tremendous fancy to her looks. I ought doubtless to
have been humiliated by the simplicity of his judgment of them, a
judgment for which the rendering was lost in the subject, quite
leaving out the element of art. He was like the innocent reader
for whom the story is "really true" and the author a negligible
quantity. He had come to me only because he wanted to purchase,
and I remember being so amused at his attitude, which I had never
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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 Under the Andes by Rex Stout: Sad as the last which reddens over one
That sinks with all we love below the verge;
So sad, so fresh, the days that are no more."
Her voice, subdued and low, breathed a sweetness that seemed
almost to be of another world. My ear quivered with the
vibrations, and long after she was silent the last mellow note
floated through my brain.
Suddenly I became conscious of another sound, scarcely less
musical. It, too, was low; so low and faint that at first I
thought my ear deceived me, or that some distant echo was returning
Desiree's song down the dark tunnel.
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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 God The Invisible King by H. G. Wells: Everything is there as it was before, only now it is aflame.
Suddenly the light fills one's eyes, and one knows that God has
risen and that doubt has fled for ever.
3. GOD IS YOUTH
The third thing to be told of the true God is that GOD IS YOUTH.
God, we hold, began and is always beginning. He looks forever into
the future.
Most of the old religions derive from a patriarchal phase. God is
in those systems the Ancient of Days. I know of no Christian
attempt to represent or symbolise God the Father which is not a
bearded, aged man. White hair, beard, bearing, wrinkles, a hundred
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