| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Taming of the Shrew by William Shakespeare: you hear, sir? To leave frivolous circumstances, I pray you tell
Signior Lucentio that his father is come from Pisa, and is here
at the door to speak with him.
PEDANT.
Thou liest: his father is come from Padua, and here looking
out at the window.
VINCENTIO.
Art thou his father?
PEDANT.
Ay, sir; so his mother says, if I may believe her.
PETRUCHIO.
The Taming of the Shrew |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Louis Lambert by Honore de Balzac: Buddha, the great reformer of the three primeval religions, lived
in India, and founded his Church there, a sect which still numbers
two hundred millions more believers than Christianity can show,
while it certainly influenced the powerful Will both of Jesus and
of Confucius.
"Then Christianity raised her standard. Subsequently Mahomet fused
Judaism and Christianity, the Bible and the Gospel, in one book,
the Koran, adapting them to the apprehension of the Arab race.
Finally, Swedenborg borrowed from Magianism, Brahmanism, Buddhism,
and Christian mysticism all the truth and divine beauty that those
four great religious books hold in common, and added to them a
Louis Lambert |
