| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Sanitary and Social Lectures by Charles Kingsley: all their lives in finding and in employing men and money. What
might not be hoped from such a body, to whom that commercial
imperium in imperio of the French Protestants which the edict of
Nantes destroyed was poor and weak? Add to this that these men's
charities were boundless; that they were spending yearly, and on
the whole spending wisely and well, ten times as much as ever was
spent before in the world, on educational schemes, missionary
schemes, church building, reformatories, ragged schools,
needlewomen's charities--what not? No object of distress, it
seemed, could be discovered, no fresh means of doing good devised,
but these men's money poured bountifully and at once into that
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Phantasmagoria and Other Poems by Lewis Carroll: Hiawatha.' Having, then, distinctly stated that I challenge no
attention in the following little poem to its merely verbal jingle,
I must beg the candid reader to confine his criticism to its
treatment of the subject.]
FROM his shoulder Hiawatha
Took the camera of rosewood,
Made of sliding, folding rosewood;
Neatly put it all together.
In its case it lay compactly,
Folded into nearly nothing;
But he opened out the hinges,
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| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Chessmen of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs: alone the life of Gahan and Tara but the welfare, perhaps the
whole future, of Gathol. And so he hastened them onward through
the musty corridors of the old palace where the dust of ages lay
undisturbed upon the marble tiles. Now and again he tried a door
until he found one that was unlocked. Opening it he ushered them
into a chamber, heavy with dust. Crumbling silks and furs adorned
the walls, with ancient weapons, and great paintings whose colors
were toned by age to wondrous softness.
"This be as good as any place," he said. "No one comes here.
Never have I been here before, so I know no more of the other
chambers than you; but this one, at least, I can find again when
The Chessmen of Mars |
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 Phaedo by Plato: is the inseparable attribute is by the force of the terms imperishable. If
the odd principle were imperishable, then the number three would not perish
but remove, on the approach of the even principle. But the immortal is
imperishable; and therefore the soul on the approach of death does not
perish but removes.
Thus all objections appear to be finally silenced. And now the application
has to be made: If the soul is immortal, 'what manner of persons ought we
to be?' having regard not only to time but to eternity. For death is not
the end of all, and the wicked is not released from his evil by death; but
every one carries with him into the world below that which he is or has
become, and that only.
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