| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Resurrection by Leo Tolstoy: the same time kept looking around him--at the low bedstead with
its straw mattress, the window and the dirty, damp wall, and the
piteous face and form of this unfortunate, disfigured peasant in
his prison cloak and shoes, and he felt sadder and sadder, and
would have liked not to believe what this good-natured fellow was
saying. It seemed too dreadful to think that men could do such a
thing as to take a man, dress him in convict clothes, and put him
in this horrible place without any reason only because he himself
had been injured. And yet the thought that this seemingly true
story, told with such a good-natured expression on the face,
might be an invention and a lie was still more dreadful. This was
Resurrection |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Agesilaus by Xenophon: to the god at Delphi more than one hundred talents.[14]
[14] = 25,000 pounds nearly.
It was then that the Persian king, believing that Tissaphernes was to
blame for the ill success of his affairs, sent down Tithraustes and
cut off the satrap's head. After this the fortunes of the barbarians
grew still more desperate, whilst those of Agesilaus assumed a bolder
front. On all side embassies from the surrounding nations came to make
terms of friendship, and numbers even came over to him, stretching out
eager arms to grasp at freedom. So that Agesilaus was now no longer
the chosen captain of the Hellenes only, but of many Asiatics.
And here we may pause and consider what a weight of admiration is due
|
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Faraday as a Discoverer by John Tyndall: which rise in much slower succession; but when the current is reversed,
the hydrogen is liberated upon the cleansed wire, and then its bubbles
also become small.
Footnotes to Chapter 5
[1] Buff finds the quantity of electricity associated with one
milligramme of hydrogen in water to be equal to 45,480 charges of a
Leyden jar, with a height of 480 millimetres, and a diameter of 160
millimetres. Weber and Kohlrausch have calculated that, if the
quantity of electricity associated with one milligramme of hydrogen
in water were diffused over a cloud at a height of 1000 metres above
the earth, it would exert upon an equal quantity of the opposite
|
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 Pivot of Civilization by Margaret Sanger: older children are sent off to school. A son of five, like the rest
of the children, is on a diet of coffee,--milk costs too much. After
the children have left for school, the overworked mother again tries
to sleep, though the small son bothers her a great deal. Besides, she
must clean the house, wash, iron, mend, sew and prepare the midday
meal. She tries to snatch a little sleep in the afternoon, but
explains: ``When you got big family, all time work. Night-time in
mill drag so long, so long; day-time in home go so quick.'' By five,
this mother must get the family's supper ready, and dress for the
night's work, which begins at seven. The investigator further
reports: ``The next day was a holiday, and for a diversion, Mrs. N.
|
