| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Vailima Prayers & Sabbath Morn by Robert Louis Stevenson: have been plucked out. For our sins forgiven or prevented, for our
shame unpublished, we bless and thank Thee, O God. Help us yet
again and ever. So order events, so strengthen our frailty, as
that day by day we shall come before Thee with this song of
gratitude, and in the end we be dismissed with honour. In their
weakness and their fear, the vessels of thy handiwork so pray to
Thee, so praise Thee. Amen.
SUNDAY
WE beseech Thee, Lord, to behold us with favour, folk of many
families and nations gathered together in the peace of this roof,
weak men and women subsisting under the covert of thy patience. Be
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Gorgias by Plato: seeming or sham. In all of them order has to be brought out of disorder,
truth out of error and falsehood. This is what we mean by the greatest
improvement of man. And so, having considered in what way 'we can best
spend the appointed time, we leave the result with God.' Plato does not say
that God will order all things for the best (compare Phaedo), but he
indirectly implies that the evils of this life will be corrected in
another. And as we are very far from the best imaginable world at present,
Plato here, as in the Phaedo and Republic, supposes a purgatory or place of
education for mankind in general, and for a very few a Tartarus or hell.
The myth which terminates the dialogue is not the revelation, but rather,
like all similar descriptions, whether in the Bible or Plato, the veil of
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| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from An Inland Voyage by Robert Louis Stevenson: SAMBRE AND OISE CANAL
CANAL BOATS
NEXT day we made a late start in the rain. The Judge politely
escorted us to the end of the lock under an umbrella. We had now
brought ourselves to a pitch of humility in the matter of weather,
not often attained except in the Scottish Highlands. A rag of blue
sky or a glimpse of sunshine set our hearts singing; and when the
rain was not heavy, we counted the day almost fair.
Long lines of barges lay one after another along the canal; many of
them looking mighty spruce and shipshape in their jerkin of
Archangel tar picked out with white and green. Some carried gay
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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 Beast in the Jungle by Henry James: the wrong word; that would make everything ugly. He wanted the
knowledge he lacked to drop on him, if drop it could, by its own
august weight. If she was to forsake him it was surely for her to
take leave. This was why he didn't directly ask her again what she
knew; but it was also why, approaching the matter from another
side, he said to her in the course of his visit: "What do you
regard as the very worst that at this time of day CAN happen to
me?"
He had asked her that in the past often enough; they had, with the
odd irregular rhythm of their intensities and avoidances, exchanged
ideas about it and then had seen the ideas washed away by cool
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