| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Varieties of Religious Experience by William James: they establish a presumption. They form a consensus and have an
unequivocal outcome; and it would be odd, mystics might say, if
such a unanimous type of experience should prove to be altogether
wrong. At bottom, however, this would only be an appeal to
numbers, like the appeal of rationalism the other way; and the
appeal to numbers has no logical force. If we acknowledge it, it
is for "suggestive," not for logical reasons: we follow the
majority because to do so suits our life.
But even this presumption from the unanimity of mystics is far
from being strong. In characterizing mystic states an
pantheistic, optimistic, etc., I am afraid I over-simplified the
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from God The Invisible King by H. G. Wells: phrase or formula at all.
There is for example this practical identity of religious feeling
and this discrepancy of interpretation between such an inquirer as
myself and a convert of the Salvation Army. Here, clothing itself
in phrases and images of barbaric sacrifice, of slaughtered lambs
and fountains of precious blood, a most repulsive and
incomprehensible idiom to me, and expressing itself by shouts,
clangour, trumpeting, gesticulations, and rhythmic pacings that stun
and dismay my nerves, I find, the same object sought, release from
self, and the same end, the end of identification with the immortal,
successfully if perhaps rather insecurely achieved. I see God
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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 Country of the Pointed Firs by Sarah Orne Jewett: proper haddock, and having taken him on board and ended his life
resolutely, we went our way.
As we sailed along I listened to an increasingly delightful
commentary upon the islands, some of them barren rocks, or at best
giving sparse pasturage for sheep in the early summer. On one of
these an eager little flock ran to the water's edge and bleated at
us so affectingly that I would willingly have stopped; but Mrs.
Todd steered away from the rocks, and scolded at the sheep's mean
owner, an acquaintance of hers, who grudged the little salt and
still less care which the patient creatures needed. The hot
midsummer sun makes prisons of these small islands that are a
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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 The Glimpses of the Moon by Edith Wharton: tray. "Will that do?" he asked with a stiff smile, as if to
humour her.
"Nothing will do--as long as you're not you!"
"Not me?"
She shook her head wearily. "What's the use? You accept things
theoretically--and then when they happen ...."
"What things? What has happened!"
A sudden impatience mastered her. What did he suppose, after
all--? "But you know all about Ellie. We used to talk about
her often enough in old times," she said.
"Ellie and young Davenant?"
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