The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from La Grande Breteche by Honore de Balzac: we divine the history of a worthy tradesman when we read the epitaph
on his tomb. To complete the mournful and tender impressions which
seize the soul, on one of the walls there is a sundial graced with
this homely Christian motto, '/Ultimam cogita/.'
"The roof of this house is dreadfully dilapidated; the outside
shutters are always closed; the balconies are hung with swallows'
nests; the doors are for ever shut. Straggling grasses have outlined
the flagstones of the steps with green; the ironwork is rusty. Moon
and sun, winter, summer, and snow have eaten into the wood, warped the
boards, peeled off the paint. The dreary silence is broken only by
birds and cats, polecats, rats, and mice, free to scamper round, and
 La Grande Breteche |
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 God The Invisible King by H. G. Wells: secondary matter that I am convinced that this trend of intelligent
opinion is a discovery of truth. The reader is told of my own
belief merely to avoid an affectation of impartiality and aloofness.
The theogony here set forth is ancient; one can trace it appearing
and disappearing and recurring in the mutilated records of many
different schools of speculation; the conception of God as finite is
one that has been discussed very illuminatingly in recent years in
the work of one I am happy to write of as my friend and master, that
very great American, the late William James. It was an idea that
became increasingly important to him towards the end of his life.
And it is the most releasing idea in the system.
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