| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from God The Invisible King by H. G. Wells: suspect, and accessibilities of which I know nothing.
Yet here is a consideration pointing rather the other way. If you
think, as you must think, that you yourself can be lost to God and
damned, then I cannot see how you can avoid thinking that other
people can be damned. But that is not to believe that there are
people damned at the outset by their moral and intellectual
insufficiency; that is not to make out that there is a class of
essential and incurable spiritual defectives. The religious life
preceded clear religious understanding and extends far beyond its
range.
In my own case I perceive that in spite of the value I attach to
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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 Altar of the Dead by Henry James: dignity of its own, and if, in their talk, you had heard our
friends use it, you might have taken them for a pair of pagans of
old alluding decently to the domesticated gods. They never knew -
at least Stransom never knew - how they had learned to be sure
about each other. If it had been with each a question of what the
other was there for, the certitude had come in some fine way of its
own. Any faith, after all, has the instinct of propagation, and it
was as natural as it was beautiful that they should have taken
pleasure on the spot in the imagination of a following. If the
following was for each but a following of one it had proved in the
event sufficient. Her debt, however, of course was much greater
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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 Mayflower Compact: of the Ends aforesaid; And by Virtue hereof do enact,
constitute, and frame, such just and equall Laws, Ordinances,
Acts, Constitutions, and Offices, from time to time,
as shall be thought most meete and convenient for the
Generall Good of the Colonie; unto which we promise
all due Submission and Obedience.
In Witness whereof we have hereunto subscribed our names
at Cape Cod the eleventh of November, in the Raigne of our
Sovereigne Lord, King James of England, France, and Ireland,
the eighteenth, and of Scotland, the fiftie-fourth,
Anno. Domini, 1620.
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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 Don Quixote by Miquel de Cervantes: "I thought your worship spoke of a clue in it," said Sancho.
"I only said Chloe," replied Don Quixote; "and that no doubt, is the
name of the lady of whom the author of the sonnet complains; and,
faith, he must be a tolerable poet, or I know little of the craft."
"Then your worship understands rhyming too?"
"And better than thou thinkest," replied Don Quixote, "as thou shalt
see when thou carriest a letter written in verse from beginning to end
to my lady Dulcinea del Toboso, for I would have thee know, Sancho,
that all or most of the knights-errant in days of yore were great
troubadours and great musicians, for both of these accomplishments, or
more properly speaking gifts, are the peculiar property of
Don Quixote |
