| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Wrecker by Stevenson & Osbourne: "I am only sorry you did not come to me at first," said Uncle
Adam. "I take the liberty to say it would have been more
decent."
"I think so too, Uncle Adam," I replied; "but you must bear in
mind I was ignorant in what light you might regard my
application."
"I hope I would never turn my back on my own flesh and
blood," he returned with emphasis; but to my anxious ear, with
more of temper than affection. "I could never forget you were
my sister's son. I regard this as a manifest duty. I have no
choice but to accept the entire responsibility of the position you
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Louis Lambert by Honore de Balzac: Finally, Swedenborg borrowed from Magianism, Brahmanism, Buddhism,
and Christian mysticism all the truth and divine beauty that those
four great religious books hold in common, and added to them a
doctrine, a basis of reasoning, that may be termed mathematical.
"Any man who plunges into these religious waters, of which the
sources are not all known, will find proofs that Zoroaster, Moses,
Buddha, Confucius, Jesus Christ, and Swedenborg had identical
principles and aimed at identical ends.
"The last of them all, Swedenborg, will perhaps be the Buddha of
the North. Obscure and diffuse as his writings are, we find in
them the elements of a magnificent conception of society. His
Louis Lambert |
