That each separate spirit made is of one element, and shows,
By its power or by its weakness, its unrest or its repose,
Whether earth, air, fire, or water is the Source from which it flows?
’Tis a difficult conclusion; but, as in the jewel’s blue,
Red and rose and green and amber flash and leap and sparkle through,
Through your speculative fancy seems to scintillate the true.
For the variance of the creature whom we call our fellow-man,
Framed alike in needs and passions, on the self-same human plan,
Grows more wide, more past believing, as we study it and scan.
Ah, the temperaments, the fateful, how they front us and surprise,