| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Island of Doctor Moreau by H. G. Wells: Pleasure and pain--bah! What is your theologian's ecstasy but
Mahomet's houri in the dark? This store which men and women set
on pleasure and pain, Prendick, is the mark of the beast upon them,--
the mark of the beast from which they came! Pain, pain and pleasure,
they are for us only so long as we wriggle in the dust.
"You see, I went on with this research just the way it led me.
That is the only way I ever heard of true research going.
I asked a question, devised some method of obtaining an answer,
and got a fresh question. Was this possible or that possible?
You cannot imagine what this means to an investigator,
what an intellectual passion grows upon him! You cannot imagine
The Island of Doctor Moreau |
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 Golden Sayings of Epictetus by Epictetus: complete. Something of the same sort is true also of diseases of
the mind. Behind, there remains a legacy of traces and blisters:
and unless these are effectually erased, subsequent blows on the
same spot will produce no longer mere blisters, but sores. If you
do not wish to be prone to anger, do not feed the habit; give it
nothing which may tend its increase. At first, keep quiet and
count the days when you were not angry: "I used to be angry every
day, then every other day: next every two, next every three
days!" and if you succeed in passing thirty days, sacrifice to
the Gods in thanksgiving.
LXXVI
The Golden Sayings of Epictetus |
