Chapter 23

EARTH, FIRE AND WATER

Some French writer that I read when I was a boy, said that the desert went into the heart of the Jews in their wanderings and made them what they are. I cannot remember by what argument he proved them to be even yet the indestructible children of earth, but it may well be that the elements have their children. If we knew the Fire Worshippers better we might find that their centuries of pious¹ observance have been rewarded, and that the fire has given them a little of its nature; and I am certain that the water, the water of the seas and of lakes and of mist² and rain, has all but made the Irish after its image. Images form themselves in our minds perpetually³ as if they were reflected in some pool. We gave ourselves up in old times to mythology⁴, and saw the Gods everywhere. We talked to them face to face, and the stories of that communion are so many that I think they outnumber all the like stories of all the rest of Europe. Even to-day our country people speak with the dead and with some who perhaps have never died as we understand death; and even our educated people pass without great difficulty into the condition of quiet that is the condition of vision⁵. We can make our minds so like still water that beings gather about us that they may see, it may be, their own images, and so live for a moment with a clearer, perhaps even with a fiercer life because of our quiet. Did not the wise Porphyry think that all souls come to be born because of water, and that "even the generation of images in the mind is from water"?

1902.

1 pious   

adj.虔诚的；道貌岸然的

参考例句：

• Alexander is a pious follower of the faith.亚历山大是个虔诚的信徒。
• Her mother was a pious Christian.她母亲是一个虔诚的基督教徒。

2 mist   

n.雾，迷蒙，朦胧不清；vt.使...模糊，蒙上雾；vi.使...模糊，下雾

参考例句：

• She saw his face through a mist of tears.她泪眼朦胧地望着他的脸。
• There is a film of mist over the land.大地上笼罩着一层薄雾。

3 perpetually   

adv.持久地，没完没了地

参考例句：

• She wore a perpetually martyred expression. 她总是那么一副可怜兮兮的样子。
• We belong perpetually to each other for life or for death. 我们永远相依为命，同生死，共患难。

4 mythology   

n.神话，神话学，神话集

参考例句：

• In Greek mythology,Zeus was the ruler of Gods and men.在希腊神话中，宙斯是众神和人类的统治者。
• He is the hero of Greek mythology.他是希腊民间传说中的英雄。

5 vision   

n.视觉，先见之明，光景，视力，眼力，幻想，影像；vt.幻想

参考例句：

• The wall cuts across our line of vision.那面墙挡住了我们的视线。
• Much reading has impaired his vision.大量读书损害了他的视力。