| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Silverado Squatters by Robert Louis Stevenson: rational creature has ever led an existence more poisoned by
terror than that dog's at Silverado. Every whiz of the
rattle made him bound. His eyes rolled; he trembled; he
would be often wet with sweat. One of our great mysteries
was his terror of the mountain. A little away above our
nook, the azaleas and almost all the vegetation ceased.
Dwarf pines not big enough to be Christmas trees, grew thinly
among loose stone and gravel scaurs. Here and there a big
boulder sat quiescent on a knoll, having paused there till
the next rain in his long slide down the mountain. There was
here no ambuscade for the snakes, you could see clearly where
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Tour Through Eastern Counties of England by Daniel Defoe: than gentlemen in it; indeed, this part is so entirely given up to
industry, that what with the seafaring men on the one side, and the
manufactures on the other, we saw no idle hands here, but every man
busy on the main affair of life, that is to say, getting money;
some of the principal of these towns are:- Alsham, North Walsham,
South Walsham, Worsted, Caston, Reepham, Holt, Saxthorp, St.
Faith's, Blikling, and many others. Near the last, Sir John
Hobart, of an ancient family in this county, has a noble seat, but
old built. This is that St. Faith's, where the drovers bring their
black cattle to sell to the Norfolk graziers, as is observed above.
From Cromer we ride on the strand or open shore to Weyburn Hope,
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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 Chance by Joseph Conrad: were out with the two nurses. The hotel housemaid helped Mrs. Fyne
to put Flora de Barral to bed. She was as if gone speechless and
insane. She lay on her back, her face white like a piece of paper,
her dark eyes staring at the ceiling, her awful immobility broken by
sudden shivering fits with a loud chattering of teeth in the shadowy
silence of the room, the blinds pulled down, Mrs. Fyne sitting by
patiently, her arms folded, yet inwardly moved by the riddle of that
distress of which she could not guess the word, and saying to
herself: "That child is too emotional--much too emotional to be
ever really sound!" As if anyone not made of stone could be
perfectly sound in this world. And then how sound? In what sense--
Chance |
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 Phaedo by Plato: arguments from the visible to the invisible, and are therefore felt to be
no longer applicable. The evidence to the historical fact seems to be
weaker than was once supposed: it is not consistent with itself, and is
based upon documents which are of unknown origin. The immortality of man
must be proved by other arguments than these if it is again to become a
living belief. We must ask ourselves afresh why we still maintain it, and
seek to discover a foundation for it in the nature of God and in the first
principles of morality.
3. At the outset of the discussion we may clear away a confusion. We
certainly do not mean by the immortality of the soul the immortality of
fame, which whether worth having or not can only be ascribed to a very
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