| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from New Poems by Robert Louis Stevenson: TEMPEST tossed and sore afflicted, sin defiled and care oppressed,
Come to me, all ye that labour; come, and I will give ye rest.
Fear no more, O doubting hearted; weep no more, O weeping eye!
Lo, the voice of your redeemer; lo, the songful morning near.
Here one hour you toil and combat, sin and suffer, bleed and die;
In my father's quiet mansion soon to lay your burden by.
Bear a moment, heavy laden, weary hand and weeping eye.
Lo, the feet of your deliverer; lo, the hour of freedom here.
VARIANT FORM OF THE PRECEDING POEM
COME to me, all ye that labour; I will give your spirits rest;
Here apart in starry quiet I will give you rest.
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from On the Duty of Civil Disobedience by Henry David Thoreau: to which the rule of expediency does not apply, in which
a people, as well and an individual, must do justice, cost
what it may. If I have unjustly wrested a plank from a
drowning man, I must restore it to him though I drown myself.
This, according to Paley, would be inconvenient.
But he that would save his life, in such a case, shall lose it.
This people must cease to hold slaves, and to make war
on Mexico, though it cost them their existence as a people.
In their practice, nations agree with Paley; but does
anyone think that Massachusetts does exactly what is right
at the present crisis?
On the Duty of Civil Disobedience |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Early Short Fiction of Edith Wharton by Edith Wharton: "Different? How different?" Mary flashed out at her, her own
mind, in the same instant, leaping back to an image left on it
that morning, but temporarily lost under layers of subsequent
impressions.
"His hat had a wide brim, you mean? and his face was pale--a
youngish face?" Mary pressed her, with a white-lipped intensity
of interrogation. But if the kitchen-maid found any adequate
answer to this challenge, it was swept away for her listener down
the rushing current of her own convictions. The stranger--the
stranger in the garden! Why had Mary not thought of him before?
She needed no one now to tell her that it was he who had called
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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: 5. THE HERESY OF QUIETISM
God comes to us within and takes us for his own. He releases us
from ourselves; he incorporates us with his own undying experience
and adventure; he receives us and gives himself. He is a stimulant;
he makes us live immortally and more abundantly. I have compared
him to the sensation of a dear, strong friend who comes and stands
quietly beside one, shoulder to shoulder.
The finding of God is the beginning of service. It is not an escape
from life and action; it is the release of life and action from the
prison of the mortal self. Not to realise that, is the heresy of
Quietism, of many mystics. Commonly such people are people of some
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