| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Rig Veda: 4 As Atri when descending to the cavem called on you loudly
like a
wailing woman.
Ye came to him, O Asvins, with the freshest and most auspicious
fleetness of a falcon.
5 Tree, part asunder like the side of her who bringeth forth
a child.
Ye Asvins, listen to my call: loose Saptavadhri from his bonds.
6 For Saptavadhri, for the seer affrighted when he wept and
wafled,
Ye, Asvins, with your magic powers rent up the tree and shattered
The Rig Veda |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Little Rivers by Henry van Dyke: resolved not to let that mysterious vessel escape us, and threw
ourselves with energy into the novel excitement of chasing a
steamboat in the dark.
Then the lights began to swing around; the throbbing of paddle-
wheels grew louder and louder; she was evidently coming straight
toward us. At that moment it flashed upon us that, while she had
plenty of lights, we had none! We were lying, invisible, right
across her track. The character of the steamboat chase was
reversed. We turned and fled, as the guides say, a quatre pattes,
into illimitable space, trying to get out of the way of our too
powerful friend. It makes considerable difference, in the voyage
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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 Witch, et. al by Anton Chekhov: could not endure the affront of seeing the master prefer another
servant. . . . Perhaps she put it in on purpose, God knows! I was
young then, and did not understand it all . . . now I remember
that our master had taken another mistress and mamma was greatly
disturbed. Our trial lasted nearly two years. . . . Mamma was
condemned to penal servitude for twenty years, and I, on account
of my youth, only to seven."
"And why were you sentenced?"
"As an accomplice. I handed the glass to the master. That was
always the custom. Mamma prepared the soda and I handed it to
him. Only I tell you all this as a Christian, brothers, as I
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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 Memories and Portraits by Robert Louis Stevenson: stalwart sons and tall daughters were housed and reared, and came
to man and womanhood in that nest of little chambers; so that the
face of the earth was peppered with the children of the manse, and
letters with outlandish stamps became familiar to the local
postman, and the walls of the little chambers brightened with the
wonders of the East. The dullest could see this was a house that
had a pair of hands in divers foreign places: a well-beloved house
- its image fondly dwelt on by many travellers.
Here lived an ancestor of mine, who was a herd of men. I read him,
judging with older criticism the report of childish observation, as
a man of singular simplicity of nature; unemotional, and hating the
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