| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from A Treatise on Parents and Children by George Bernard Shaw: love may easily be more selfish and jealous than a carnal one.
Anyhow, it is plain matter of fact that naively selfish people
sometimes try with fierce jealousy to prevent their children marrying.
Family Affection
Until the family as we know it ceases to exist, nobody will dare to
analyze parental affection as distinguished from that general human
sympathy which has secured to many an orphan fonder care in a
stranger's house than it would have received from its actual parents.
Not even Tolstoy, in The Kreutzer Sonata, has said all that we suspect
about it. When it persists beyond the period at which it ceases to be
necessary to the child's welfare, it is apt to be morbid; and we are
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Critias by Plato: respective powers and governments of the two kingdoms. Let us give the
precedence to Athens.
In the days of old, the gods had the whole earth distributed among them by
allotment (Cp. Polit.) There was no quarrelling; for you cannot rightly
suppose that the gods did not know what was proper for each of them to
have, or, knowing this, that they would seek to procure for themselves by
contention that which more properly belonged to others. They all of them
by just apportionment obtained what they wanted, and peopled their own
districts; and when they had peopled them they tended us, their nurselings
and possessions, as shepherds tend their flocks, excepting only that they
did not use blows or bodily force, as shepherds do, but governed us like
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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 Yates Pride by Mary E. Wilkins Freeman: estate of matrimony, and had consequently obvious cognizance of
such matters.
"I think," said she, "that Eudora should be told that Harry
Lawton has come back and is boarding at the Wellwood Inn."
"You think," faltered Amelia, "that it is possible she might meet
him unexpectedly?"
"I certainly do think so. And she might show her feelings in a
way which she would ever afterward regret."
"You think, then, that she --"
Sophia gave her sister a look. Amelia fled after Eudora and the
baby-carriage. She overtook her at the gate. She laid her hand
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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 Sesame and Lilies by John Ruskin: our British constitution, which has fallen dropsical of late, and
has an evil thirst, and evil hunger, and wants healthier feeding.
You have got its corn laws repealed for it; try if you cannot get
corn laws established for it, dealing in a better bread;--bread made
of that old enchanted Arabian grain, the Sesame, which opens doors;-
-doors not of robbers', but of Kings' Treasuries.
LECTURE II.--LILIES OF QUEENS' GARDENS
"Be thou glad, oh thirsting Desert; let the desert be made cheerful,
and bloom as the lily; and the barren places of Jordan shall run
wild with wood."--ISAIAH XXXV. I. (Septuagint.)
It will, perhaps, be well, as this Lecture is the sequel of one
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