| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Expression of Emotion in Man and Animals by Charles Darwin: we are quite ignorant."
[15] `De la Physionomie,' pp. 12, 73.
[16] `Mecanisme de la Physionomie Humaine,' 8vo edit. p. 31.
[17] `Elements of Physiology,' English translation, vol. ii. p. 934.
No doubt as long as man and all other animals are viewed
as independent creations, an effectual stop is put to our
natural desire to investigate as far as possible the causes
of Expression. By this doctrine, anything and everything can
be equally well explained; and it has proved as pernicious with
respect to Expression as to every other branch of natural history.
With mankind some expressions, such as the bristling of the hair under
Expression of Emotion in Man and Animals |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Unseen World and Other Essays by John Fiske: conflict between "science" and "religion," we are nowhere
enlightened as to what the cause or character of this conflict
is, nor are we enabled to get a good look at either of the
parties to the strife. With regard to it "religion" especially
are we left in the dark. What this dreadful thing is towards
which "science" is always playing the part of Herakles towards
the Lernaean Hydra, we are left to gather from the course of the
narrative. Yet, in a book with any valid claim to
clearsightedness, one would think such a point as this ought to
receive very explicit preliminary treatment.
The course of the narrative, however, leaves us in little doubt
The Unseen World and Other Essays |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Outlaw of Torn by Edgar Rice Burroughs: As her thoughts wandered back to her brief meeting
with him two years before, she wrote and dispatched
her reply to Norman of Torn.
In the great hall that night as the King's party sat
at supper, Philip of France, addressing Henry, said:
"And who thinkest thou, My Lord King, rode by my
side to Battel today, that I might not be set upon by
knaves upon the highway?"
"Some of our good friends from Kent?" asked the
King.
"Nay, it was a man upon whose head Your Majesty
The Outlaw of Torn |
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 A Drama on the Seashore by Honore de Balzac: dazzling light, as eagles gaze at the sun, without lowering his
eyelids. Try to remember, dear uncle, one of those old oaks, whose
knotty trunks, from which the branches have been lopped, rise with
weird power in some lonely place, and you will have an image of this
man. Here was a ruined Herculean frame, the face of an Olympian Jove,
destroyed by age, by hard sea toil, by grief, by common food, and
blackened as it were by lightning. Looking at his hard and hairy
hands, I saw that the sinews stood out like cords of iron. Everything
about him denoted strength of constitution. I noticed in a corner of
the grotto a quantity of moss, and on a sort of ledge carved by nature
on the granite, a loaf of bread, which covered the mouth of an
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