| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Montezuma's Daughter by H. Rider Haggard: and sailed north after the Spaniards till they were lost in the
Scottish seas.
Little things lead to great, men say, but here great things lead to
little, for because of these tidings it comes about that I, Thomas
Wingfield, of the Lodge and the parish of Ditchingham in the county
of Norfolk, being now of a great age and having only a short time
to live, turn to pen and ink. Ten years ago, namely, in the year
1578, it pleased her Majesty, our gracious Queen Elizabeth, who at
that date visited this county, that I should be brought before her
at Norwich. There and then, saying that the fame of it had reached
her, she commanded me to give her some particulars of the story of
Montezuma's Daughter |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Faraday as a Discoverer by John Tyndall: in chemistry.
Footnotes to Chapter 6
[1] I copy these words from the printed abstract of a Friday
evening lecture, given by myself, because they remind me of
Faraday's voice, responding to the utterance by an emphatic 'hear!
hear!'--Proceedings of the Royal Institution, vol. ii. p. 132.
[2] In 1838 he expresses himself thus:--'The word current is so
expressive in common language that when applied in the consideration
of electrical phenomena, we can hardly divest it sufficiently of its
meaning, or prevent our minds from being prejudiced by it.'--
Exp. Resear., vol. i. p. 515. ($ 1617.)
|
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Mansion by Henry van Dyke: another
as they looked; and now and then one of them would smile and
beckon him a friendly greeting, so that he felt they would like
him
to be with them.
There was quite an interval between the groups; and he followed
each of them with his eyes after it had passed, blanching the
long ribbon of the road for a little transient space, rising and
receding
across the wide, billowy upland, among the rounded hillocks of
aerial green and gold and lilac, until it came to the high
|
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 Georgics by Virgil: And slips yet quick within the parent-soil;
No root need others, nor doth the pruner's hand
Shrink to restore the topmost shoot to earth
That gave it being. Nay, marvellous to tell,
Lopped of its limbs, the olive, a mere stock,
Still thrusts its root out from the sapless wood,
And oft the branches of one kind we see
Change to another's with no loss to rue,
Pear-tree transformed the ingrafted apple yield,
And stony cornels on the plum-tree blush.
Come then, and learn what tilth to each belongs
Georgics |
