| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Pagan and Christian Creeds by Edward Carpenter: understanding of the dim and remote past.
It is clear that before any definite speculations on
heaven-dwelling gods or divine beings had arisen in the human
mind--or any clear theories of how the sun and moon
and stars might be connected with the changes of the
seasons on the earth--there were still certain obvious
things which appealed to everybody, learned or unlearned
alike. One of these was the return of Vegetation, bringing
with it the fruits or the promise of the fruits of the earth,
for human food, and also bringing with it increase of animal
life, for food in another form; and the other was the return
Pagan and Christian Creeds |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from A Voyage to Abyssinia by Father Lobo: observable that St. Jerome, confining himself to the Hebrew, calls
this sea Jamsuf. Jam in that language signifies sea, and suf is the
name of a plant in Aethiopia, from which the Abyssins extract a
beautiful crimson; whether this be the same with the gouesmon, I
know not, but am of opinion that the herb gives to this sea both the
colour and the name.
The vessels most used in the Red Sea, though ships of all sizes may
be met with there, are gelves, of which some mention hath been made
already; these are the more convenient, because they will not split
if thrown upon banks or against rocks. These gelves have given
occasion to the report that out of the cocoa-tree alone a ship may
|
