| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Dawn O'Hara, The Girl Who Laughed by Edna Ferber: In the dim quiet of the little hallway Von Gerhard
held out his hands--those deft, manual hands--those
steady, sure, surgeonly hands--hands to cling to, to
steady oneself by, and because I needed them most just
then, and because I longed with my whole soul to place
both my weary hands in those strong capable ones and to
bring those dear, cool, sane fingers up to my burning
cheeks, I put one foot on the first stair and held out
two chilly fingertips. "Good-night, Herr Doktor," I
said, "and thank you, not only for myself, but for her.
I have felt what she feels to-night. It is not a
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Barlaam and Ioasaph by St. John of Damascus: souls. Blessed be the holy name of his glory, praised and
exalted above all for ever! Amen."
XVIII.
Ioasaph said unto him, "If thou hadst for a long time considered,
most wise Sir, how thou mightest best declare to me the
explanation of the questions that I propounded, methinks thou
couldest not have done it better than by uttering such words as
thou hast now spoken unto me. Thou hast taught me that God is
the Maker and preserver of all things; and in unanswerable
language thou hast shown me that the glory of his majesty is
incomprehensible to human reasonings, and that no man is able to
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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 Unseen World and Other Essays by John Fiske: muscles, its symmetry of feature, and its serenity of expression,
to a typical modern portrait, with its more delicate contour, its
exaggerated forehead, its thoughtful, perhaps jaded look. Or
consider in what respects the grand faces of the Plantagenet
monarchs differ from the refined countenances of the leading
English statesmen of to-day. Or again, consider the familiar
pictures of the Oxford and Harvard crews which rowed a race on
the Thames in 1869, and observe how much less youthful are the
faces of the Americans. By contrast they almost look careworn.
The summing up of countless such facts is that modern
civilization is making us nervous. Our most formidable diseases
The Unseen World and Other Essays |
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 Mosses From An Old Manse by Nathaniel Hawthorne: unsubstantial sorrows which the necessity of our mortal state
begets on idleness, that an observer, casting aside sentiment, is
sometimes led to question whether there be any real woe, except
absolute physical suffering and the loss of closest friends. A
crowd who exhibit what they deem to be broken hearts--and among
them many lovelorn maids and bachelors, and men of disappointed
ambition in arts or politics, and the poor who were once rich, or
who have sought to be rich in vain--the great majority of these
may ask admittance into some other fraternity. There is no room
here. Perhaps we may institute a separate class where such
unfortunates will naturally fall into the procession. Meanwhile
Mosses From An Old Manse |
