| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from God The Invisible King by H. G. Wells: beyond Christian theology altogether a clue can still be found to
many problems in comparative theology in this distinction between
the Being of Nature (cf. Kant's "starry vault above") and the God
of the heart (Kant's "moral law within"). The idea of an antagonism
seems to have been cardinal in the thought of the Essenes and the
Orphic cult and in the Persian dualism. So, too, Buddhism seems to
be "antagonistic." On the other hand, the Moslem teaching and
modern Judaism seem absolutely to combine and identify the two; God
the creator is altogether and without distinction also God the King
of Mankind. Christianity stands somewhere between such complete
identification and complete antagonism. It admits a difference in
|
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 New Arabian Nights by Robert Louis Stevenson: gable a single window. He passed to the front and saw a ticket
offering unfurnished lodgings by the month; and, on inquiry, the
room which commanded the Dictator's garden proved to be one of
those to let. Francis did not hesitate a moment; he took the room,
paid an advance upon the rent, and returned to his hotel to seek
his baggage.
The old man with the sabre-cut might or might not be his father; he
might or he might not be upon the true scent; but he was certainly
on the edge of an exciting mystery, and he promised himself that he
would not relax his observation until he had got to the bottom of
the secret.
|