| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Verses 1889-1896 by Rudyard Kipling: Lightly answered the Colonel's son: "Do good to bird and beast,
But count who come for the broken meats before thou makest a feast.
If there should follow a thousand swords to carry my bones away,
Belike the price of a jackal's meal were more than a thief could pay.
They will feed their horse on the standing crop,
their men on the garnered grain,
The thatch of the byres will serve their fires when all the cattle are slain.
But if thou thinkest the price be fair, -- thy brethren wait to sup,
The hound is kin to the jackal-spawn, -- howl, dog, and call them up!
And if thou thinkest the price be high, in steer and gear and stack,
Give me my father's mare again, and I'll fight my own way back!"
Verses 1889-1896 |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Rape of Lucrece by William Shakespeare: 'Fool, fool!' quoth she, 'his wounds will not be sore.'
Thus ebbs and flows the current of her sorrow,
And time doth weary time with her complaining.
She looks for night, and then she longs for morrow,
And both she thinks too long with her remaining:
Short time seems long in sorrow's sharp sustaining.
Though woe be heavy, yet it seldom sleeps;
And they that watch see time how slow it creeps.
Which all this time hath overslipp'd her thought,
That she with painted images hath spent;
Being from the feeling of her own grief brought
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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 Tarzan of the Apes by Edgar Rice Burroughs: No one was in sight. His eyes rested upon the open doorway
of a nearby hut. He would take a look within, thought Tarzan,
and so, cautiously, he approached the low thatched building.
For a moment he stood without, listening intently. There was
no sound, and he glided into the semi-darkness of the interior.
Weapons hung against the walls--long spears, strangely
shaped knives, a couple of narrow shields. In the center of
the room was a cooking pot, and at the far end a litter of dry
grasses covered by woven mats which evidently served the
owners as beds and bedding. Several human skulls lay upon
the floor.
Tarzan of the Apes |
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 Old Indian Legends by Zitkala-Sa: Upon leaving his friend, Manstin hurried away toward the North
country whither he was bound for a long hunt. Suddenly he came
upon the edge of a wide brook. His alert eye caught sight of a
rawhide rope staked to the water's brink, which led away toward a
small round hut in the distance. The ground was trodden into a
deep groove beneath the loosely drawn rawhide rope.
"Hun-he!" exclaimed Manstin, bending over the freshly made
footprints in the moist bank of the brook. "A man's footprints!"
he said to himself. "A blind man lives in yonder hut! This rope
is his guide by which he comes for his daily water!" surmised
Manstin, who knew all the peculiar contrivances of the people. At
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