| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Father Sergius by Leo Tolstoy: even prayed more than usual, but it was lip-service only and his
soul was not in it. This condition would continue for a day, or
sometimes for two days, and would then pass of itself. But those
days were dreadful. Kasatsky felt that he was neither in his own
hands nor in God's, but was subject to something else. All he
could do then was to obey the starets, to restrain himself, to
undertake nothing, and simply to wait. In general all this time
he lived not by his own will but by that of the starets, and in
this obedience he found a special tranquillity.
So he lived in his first monastery for seven years. At the end
of the third year he received the tonsure and was ordained to the
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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 Poems by Oscar Wilde: These things are old.
I remember so well the room,
And the lilac bloom
That beat at the dripping pane
In the warm June rain;
And the colour of your gown,
It was amber-brown,
And two yellow satin bows
From your shoulders rose.
And the handkerchief of French lace
Which you held to your face -
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