| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Unseen World and Other Essays by John Fiske: in ancient Athens, where political life was as absorbing and
nearly as turbulent as in the United States. The difference is
due to our lack of faith in culture, a lack of faith in that of
which we have not had adequate experience.
We lack culture because we live in a hurry, and because our
attention is given up to pursuits which call into activity and
develop but one side of us. On the one hand contemplate Sokrates
quietly entertaining a crowd in the Athenian market-place, and on
the other hand consider Broadway with its eternal clatter, and
its throngs of hurrying people elbowing and treading on each
other's heels, and you will get a lively notion of the difference
The Unseen World and Other Essays |
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: fallen Head and the closed Eye exclude from my thought the idea of
glorified humanity. The Christ to whom we are led is One who 'hath
been crucified,' who hath passed the trial victoriously and borne
the fruits to heaven. I dare not then rest on this side of the
glory."
I find, too, a still more remarkable expression of the modern spirit
in a tract, "The Call of the Kingdom," by that very able and subtle,
Anglican theologian, the Rev. W. Temple, who declares that under the
vitalising stresses of the war we are winning "faith in Christ as an
heroic leader. We have thought of Him so much as meek and gentle
that there is no ground in our picture of Him, for the vision which
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