| 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: shadow of their mortality. At every challenge comes the possibility
of help from without, the idea of eluding frustration, the
aspiration towards immortality. It is possible to classify the
appeals men make for God under the headings of their chief system of
effort, their efforts to understand, their fear and their struggles
for safety and happiness, the craving of their restlessness for
peace, their angers against disorder and their desire for the
avenger; their sexual passions and perplexities. . . .
Each of these great systems of needs and efforts brings its own sort
of sediment into religion. Each, that is to say, has its own kind
of heresy, its distinctive misapprehension of God. It is only in
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Time Machine by H. G. Wells: that one sees on forest moss or on the lichen in caves: plants
which like these grow in a perpetual twilight.
`The machine was standing on a sloping beach. The sea
stretched away to the south-west, to rise into a sharp bright
horizon against the wan sky. There were no breakers and no
waves, for not a breath of wind was stirring. Only a slight oily
swell rose and fell like a gentle breathing, and showed that the
eternal sea was still moving and living. And along the margin
where the water sometimes broke was a thick incrustation of
salt--pink under the lurid sky. There was a sense of oppression
in my head, and I noticed that I was breathing very fast. The
The Time Machine |
