| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Records of a Family of Engineers by Robert Louis Stevenson: limb, but life itself that becomes the question. The boats,
notwithstanding the thinness of our ranks, left the vessel at
half-past five. The rough weather of yesterday having proved
but a summer's gale, the wind came to-day in gentle breezes;
yet, the atmosphere being cloudy, it a not a very favourable
appearance. The boats reached the rock at six a.m., and the
eight artificers who landed were employed in clearing out the
bat-holes for the beacon-house, and had a very prosperous tide
of four hours' work, being the longest yet experienced by half
an hour.
The boats left the rock again at ten o'clock, and the
|
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 Walden by Henry David Thoreau: in front, our outlines dim and misty on that side; as our shadows
reveal an insensible perspiration toward the sun. The volatile
truth of our words should continually betray the inadequacy of the
residual statement. Their truth is instantly translated; its
literal monument alone remains. The words which express our faith
and piety are not definite; yet they are significant and fragrant
like frankincense to superior natures.
Why level downward to our dullest perception always, and praise
that as common sense? The commonest sense is the sense of men
asleep, which they express by snoring. Sometimes we are inclined to
class those who are once-and-a-half-witted with the half-witted,
Walden |
