| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Unseen World and Other Essays by John Fiske: us, for nearly a century after the death of Jesus, his followers
lived in daily anticipation of his triumphant return to the
earth. The end of all things being so near at hand, no attempt
was made to insure accurate and complete memoirs for the use of a
posterity which was destined, in Christian imagination, never to
arrive. The first Christians wrote but little; even Papias, at
the end of a century, preferring second-hand or third-hand oral
tradition to the written gospels which were then beginning to
come into circulation.[17] Memoirs of the life and teachings of
Jesus were called forth by the necessity of having a written
standard of doctrine to which to appeal amid the growing
The Unseen World and Other Essays |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Water-Babies by Charles Kingsley: and I'll have one too;" and she stuck it on her back, and marched
about with it quite proud, though it was very inconvenient indeed.
And, at that, tails became all the fashion among the caddis-baits
in that pool, as they were at the end of the Long Pond last May,
and they all toddled about with long straws sticking out behind,
getting between each other's legs, and tumbling over each other,
and looking so ridiculous, that Tom laughed at them till he cried,
as we did. But they were quite right, you know; for people must
always follow the fashion, even if it be spoon-bonnets.
Then sometimes he came to a deep still reach; and there he saw the
water-forests. They would have looked to you only little weeds:
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