| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from God The Invisible King by H. G. Wells: human from religious cooperation, which will use any words to its
tune, which takes its phrasing ready-made from the world about it,
as it takes the street for its temple, and yet which may be at its
inner point in the directest contact with God. Religion may suffer
from aphasia and still be religion; it may utter misleading or
nonsensical words and yet intend and convey the truth. The methods
of the Salvation Army are older than doctrinal Christianity, and may
long survive it. Men and women may still chant of Beulah Land and
cry out in the ecstasy of salvation; the tambourine, that modern
revival of the thrilling Alexandrine sistrum, may still stir dull
nerves to a first apprehension of powers and a call beyond the
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Charmides by Plato: we do not know? Besides, knowledge is an abstraction only, and will not
inform us of any particular subject, such as medicine, building, and the
like. It may tell us that we or other men know something, but can never
tell us what we know.
Admitting that there is a knowledge of what we know and of what we do not
know, which would supply a rule and measure of all things, still there
would be no good in this; and the knowledge which temperance gives must be
of a kind which will do us good; for temperance is a good. But this
universal knowledge does not tend to our happiness and good: the only kind
of knowledge which brings happiness is the knowledge of good and evil. To
this Critias replies that the science or knowledge of good and evil, and
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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 Sanitary and Social Lectures by Charles Kingsley: you stir them, the more they smell." They fear lest we should
unsettle the minds of the many for whom these evils will never be
mended; lest we make them discontented; discontented with their
houses, their occupations, their food, their whole social
arrangements; and all in vain.
I should answer, in all courtesy and humility--for I sympathise
deeply with such men and women, and respect them deeply likewise--
but are not people discontented already, from the lowest to the
highest? And ought a man, in such a piecemeal, foolish, greedy,
sinful world as this is, and always has been, to be anything but
discontented? If he thinks that things are going all right, must
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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 Oscar Wilde Miscellaneous by Oscar Wilde: To-night is ripe for pleasure, and indeed,
I would be merry as beseems a host
Who finds a gracious and unlooked-for guest
Waiting to greet him. [Takes up a lute.]
But what is this, my lord?
Why, you have brought a lute to play to us.
Oh! play, sweet Prince. And, if I am too bold,
Pardon, but play.
GUIDO. I will not play to-night.
Some other night, Simone.
[To Bianca] You and I
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