| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Chinese Boy and Girl by Isaac Taylor Headland: palace window."
Another represents a woman in her boat and we are told that,
"leaving her oar she leisurely sang a song entitled, 'Plucking
the Caltrops.' "
Another represents a woman "wearing a pomegranate-colored
dress riding a pear-blossom colored horse." A peculiar
combination to say the least.
The fisherman's wife is represented in her boat, "making her
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Dynamiter by Robert Louis Stevenson and Fanny Van De Grift Stevenson: night fell and found me still where he had laid me during my
faint, my face buried in my hands, my soul drowned in the
darkest apprehensions. Late in the evening he returned,
carrying a candle, and, with a certain irritable tremor, bade
me rise and sup. 'Is it possible,' he added, 'that I have
been deceived in your courage? A cowardly girl is no fit
mate for me.'
I flung myself before him on my knees, and with floods of
tears besought him to release me from this engagement,
assuring him that my cowardice was abject, and that in every
point of intellect and character I was his hopeless and
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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 The Golden Threshold by Sarojini Naidu: The wealth of our valleys, new-garnered and ripe;
O sender of rain and the dewfall, we hail thee,
We praise thee, Varuna, with cymbal and pipe.
Women's Voices
Queen of the gourd-flower, queen of the harvest,
Sweet and omnipotent mother, O Earth!
Thine is the plentiful bosom that feeds us,
Thine is the womb where our riches have birth.
We bring thee our love and our garlands for tribute,
With gifts of thy opulent giving we come;
O source of our manifold gladness, we hail thee,
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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 Rape of Lucrece by William Shakespeare: Her mansion batter'd by the enemy;
Her sacred temple spotted, spoil'd, corrupted,
Grossly engirt with daring infamy:
Then let it not be call'd impiety,
If in this blemish'd fort I make some hole
Through which I may convey this troubled soul.
'Yet die I will not till my Collatine
Have heard the cause of my untimely death;
That he may vow, in that sad hour of mine,
Revenge on him that made me stop my breath.
My stained blood to Tarquin I'll bequeath,
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