| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Crisis in Russia by Arthur Ransome: produce a struggle which may well do for Western Europe
what Western Europe will have done for Russia.
It is of course possible that in some such way the Russian
Revolution may prove to be no more than the last desperate
gesture of a stricken civilization. My point is that if that is
so, civilization in Russia will not die without infecting us
with its disease. It seems to me that our own
civilization is ill already, slightly demented perhaps, and
liable, like a man in delirium, to do things which tend to
aggravate the malady. I think that the whole of the Russian
war, waged directly or indirectly by Western Europe, is an
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Alexandria and her Schools by Charles Kingsley: to lie, to slander, to intrigue, to hate, even to murder, for the sake
of what they madly called His glory: but which was really only their
own glory--the glory of their own dogmas; of propositions and
conclusions in their own brain, which, true or false, were equally
heretical in their mouths, because they used them only as watchwords of
division. Orthodox or unorthodox, they lost the knowledge of God, for
they lost the knowledge of righteousness, and love, and peace. That
Divine Logos, and theology as a whole, receded further and further aloft
into abysmal heights, as it became a mere dreary system of dead
scientific terms, having no practical bearing on their hearts and lives;
and then they, as the Neoplatonists had done before them, filled up the
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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 Tristram Shandy by Laurence Sterne: stand bolt upright--but that was rejected for the reason given above.
For a whole week after he was determined in his mind to have one of that
particular construction which is made to draw back horizontally, to hinder
a passage; and to thrust forwards again to gain a passage--of which sorts
your worship might have seen three famous ones at Spires before its
destruction--and one now at Brisac, if I mistake not;--but my father
advising my uncle Toby, with great earnestness, to have nothing more to do
with thrusting bridges--and my uncle foreseeing moreover that it would but
perpetuate the memory of the Corporal's misfortune--he changed his mind for
that of the marquis d'Hopital's invention, which the younger Bernouilli has
so well and learnedly described, as your worships may see--Act. Erud. Lips.
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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 Silas Marner by George Eliot: "Well, here's my turning," said Bryce, not surprised to perceive
that Godfrey was rather "down"; "so I'll bid you good-day, and
wish I may bring you better news another time."
Godfrey rode along slowly, representing to himself the scene of
confession to his father from which he felt that there was now no
longer any escape. The revelation about the money must be made the
very next morning; and if he withheld the rest, Dunstan would be
sure to come back shortly, and, finding that he must bear the brunt
of his father's anger, would tell the whole story out of spite, even
though he had nothing to gain by it. There was one step, perhaps,
by which he might still win Dunstan's silence and put off the evil
Silas Marner |
