| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Ancient Regime by Charles Kingsley: the whole crime, and the most potent reason for putting an end,
however fearful, to a state of things in which such a fate was
thought an honour and a gain, and not a disgrace and a ruin; in
which the most gifted daughters of the lower classes had learnt to
think it more noble to become--that which they became--than the
wives of honest men.
If you will read fairly the literature of the Ancien Regime, whether
in France or elsewhere, you will see that my facts are true. If you
have human hearts in you, you will see in them, it seems to me, an
explanation of many a guillotinade and fusillade, as yet explained
only on the ground of madness--an hypothesis which (as we do not yet
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Parmenides by Plato: the parts, the greater would be in the less, which is impossible.
Yes, impossible.
But if the whole is neither in one, nor in more than one, nor in all of the
parts, it must be in something else, or cease to be anywhere at all?
Certainly.
If it were nowhere, it would be nothing; but being a whole, and not being
in itself, it must be in another.
Very true.
The one then, regarded as a whole, is in another, but regarded as being all
its parts, is in itself; and therefore the one must be itself in itself and
also in another.
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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 War and the Future by H. G. Wells: if at last it comes home, stranger and more dreadful even than
she made it, trampling the German towns and fields with German
blood upon it and its eyes towards Berlin.
This logical development of the Tank idea may seem a gloomy
prospect for mankind. But it is open to question whether the
tremendous development of warfare that has gone on in the last
two years does after all open a prospect of unmitigated gloom.
There has been a good deal of cheap and despondent sneering
recently at the phrase, "The war that will end war." It is still
possible to maintain that that may be a correct description of
this war. It has to be remembered that war, as the aeroplane and
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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 Mosses From An Old Manse by Nathaniel Hawthorne: garments, moreover, partook of the magical change, and shone with
the gloss of novelty and glistened with the skilfully embroidered
gold that had long ago been rent away. And, half revealed among
the smoke, a yellow visage bent its lustreless eyes on Mother
Rigby.
At last the old witch clinched her fist and shook it at the
figure. Not that she was positively angry, but merely acting on
the principle--perhaps untrue, or not the only truth, though as
high a one as Mother Rigby could be expected to attain--that
feeble and torpid natures, being incapable of better inspiration,
must be stirred up by fear. But here was the crisis. Should she
Mosses From An Old Manse |
