| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Adieu by Honore de Balzac: rifled the carriage before de Sucy reached it. The old general and his
young wife, whom he had left lying in piles of clothes and wrapped in
mantles and pelisses, were now on the snow, crouching before the fire.
One door of the carriage was already torn off.
No sooner did the men about the fire hear the tread of the major's
horse than a hoarse cry, the cry of famine, arose,--
"A horse! a horse!"
Those voices formed but one voice.
"Back! back! look out for yourself!" cried two or three soldiers,
aiming at the mare. Philippe threw himself before his animal, crying
out,--
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Pagan and Christian Creeds by Edward Carpenter: found at Rome, which records that a certain Sextilius
Agesilaus Aedesius, who dedicated an altar to Attis and
the mother of the gods (Cybele) was taurobolio criobolio que
in aeternum renatus."[2] "In the procedure of the Taurobolia
and Criobolia," says Mr. J. M. Robertson,[3] "which
grew very popular in the Roman world, we have the literal
and original meaning of the phrase 'washed in the blood of
the lamb'[4]; the doctrine being that resurrection and eternal
life were secured by drenching or sprinkling with the
actual blood of a sacrificial bull or ram."[5] For the
POPULARITY of the rite we may quote Franz Cumont, who
Pagan and Christian Creeds |
