| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Seraphita by Honore de Balzac: gesture to prevent all interruption, "I relate these facts without
either affirming or denying them. Listen; afterwards you can think and
say what you like. I will inform you when I judge, criticise, and
discuss these doctrines, so as to keep clearly in view my own
intellectual neutrality between HIM and Reason.
"The life of Swedenborg was divided into two parts," continued the
pastor. "From 1688 to 1745 Baron Emanuel Swedenborg appeared in the
world as a man of vast learning, esteemed and cherished for his
virtues, always irreproachable and constantly useful. While fulfilling
high public functions in Sweden, he published, between 1709 and 1740,
several important works on mineralogy, physics, mathematics, and
Seraphita |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Divine Comedy (translated by H.F. Cary) by Dante Alighieri: Thou shalt be left: for that Almighty King,
Who reigns above, a rebel to his law,
Adjudges me, and therefore hath decreed,
That to his city none through me should come.
He in all parts hath sway; there rules, there holds
His citadel and throne. O happy those,
Whom there he chooses!" I to him in few:
"Bard! by that God, whom thou didst not adore,
I do beseech thee (that this ill and worse
I may escape) to lead me, where thou saidst,
That I Saint Peter's gate may view, and those
The Divine Comedy (translated by H.F. Cary) |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Menexenus by Plato: Plato, are undoubtedly genuine. There is another portion of them,
including the Epistles, the Epinomis, the dialogues rejected by the
ancients themselves, namely, the Axiochus, De justo, De virtute, Demodocus,
Sisyphus, Eryxias, which on grounds, both of internal and external
evidence, we are able with equal certainty to reject. But there still
remains a small portion of which we are unable to affirm either that they
are genuine or spurious. They may have been written in youth, or possibly
like the works of some painters, may be partly or wholly the compositions
of pupils; or they may have been the writings of some contemporary
transferred by accident to the more celebrated name of Plato, or of some
Platonist in the next generation who aspired to imitate his master. Not
|
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 Pellucidar by Edgar Rice Burroughs: us what long periods of rational labor had failed to
accomplish.
We had crossed the divide. We were upon the side of
the Mountains of the Clouds that we had for so long
been attempting to reach.
We looked about. Below us were green trees and
warm jungles. In the distance was a great sea.
"The Lural Az," I said, pointing toward its blue-green
surface.
Somehow--the gods alone can explain it--Perry, too,
had clung to his rifle during his mad descent of the icy
Pellucidar |
