| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Letters of Two Brides by Honore de Balzac: sleeping godson. He does not know, he says, when he will grow used to
it. These extravagant expressions of delight show me how great must
have been their fears beforehand. Louis has confided in me that he had
believed himself condemned to be childless. Poor fellow! he has all at
once developed very much, and he works even harder than he did. The
father in him has quickened his ambition.
For myself, dear soul, I grow happier and happier every moment. Each
hour creates a fresh tie between the mother and her infant. The very
nature of my feelings proves to me that they are normal, permanent,
and indestructible; whereas I shrewdly suspect love, for instance, of
being intermittent. Certainly it is not the same at all moments, the
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Pagan and Christian Creeds by Edward Carpenter: to life, and, as in the cults of Mithra, Dionysus, Adonis and
others, so in the cult of Osiris, an image placed in a coffin
was brought out before the worshipers and saluted with
glad cries of "Osiris is risen."[1] "His sufferings, his death
and his resurrection were enacted year by year in a great
mystery-play at Abydos."[2]
[1] See Plutarch on Isis and Osiris.
[2] Ancient Art and Ritual, by Jane E. Harrison, chap. i.
The two following legends have more distinctly the character
of Vegetation myths.
Adonis or Tammuz, the Syrian god of vegetation, was
Pagan and Christian Creeds |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from A Treatise on Parents and Children by George Bernard Shaw: our children. For the average parent or child nothing is really
available except the established practice; and this is what makes it
so important that the established practice should be a sound one, and
so useless for clever individuals to disparage it unless they can
organize an alternative practice and make it, too, general.
The Pursuit of Manners
If you cross-examine the duke and the coster, you will find that they
are not concerned for the scholastic attainments of their children.
Ask the duke whether he could pass the standard examination of
twelve-year-old children in elementary schools, and he will admit,
with an entirely placid smile, that he would almost certainly be
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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 The Faith of Men by Jack London: for Black Leclere. He was "black," as more than one remembered
deed bore witness, while he was as well hated as the other was
beloved. So the men of Sunrise put an antiseptic dressing on his
shoulder and haled him before Judge Lynch.
It was a simple affair. He had quarrelled with Timothy Brown at
McDougall. With Timothy Brown he had left McDougall. Without
Timothy Brown he had arrived at Sunrise. Considered in the light
of his evilness, the unanimous conclusion was that he had killed
Timothy Brown. On the other hand, Leclere acknowledged their
facts, but challenged their conclusion, and gave his own
explanation. Twenty miles out of Sunrise he and Timothy Brown were
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