| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Anabasis by Xenophon: PREPARER'S NOTE
This was typed from Dakyns' series, "The Works of Xenophon," a
four-volume set. The complete list of Xenophon's works (though
there is doubt about some of these) is:
Work Number of books
The Anabasis 7
The Hellenica 7
The Cyropaedia 8
The Memorabilia 4
The Symposium 1
The Economist 1
Anabasis |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Life of the Spider by J. Henri Fabre: here, there, or elsewhere, in what looks like mad disorder.
The operation is so erratically conducted that it takes the most
unremitting attention to follow it at all. The Spider reaches the
margin of the area by one of the spokes already placed. She goes
along this margin for some distance from the point at which she
landed, fixes her thread to the frame and returns to the centre by
the same road which she has just taken.
The thread obtained on the way in a broken line, partly on the
radius and partly on the frame, is too long for the exact distance
between the circumference and the central point. On returning to
this point, the Spider adjusts her thread, stretches it to the
The Life of the Spider |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Reminiscences of Tolstoy by Leo Tolstoy: "'Never mind, Papa; it'll be all right,' said Sasha, trying to
encourage him.
"'Ah, you women, you women!' answered her father, bitterly.
'How can it ever be all right?'
"I so much hoped that he would settle down here; it would just
have suited him. And it was his own idea, too; he had even taken
a cottage in the village," Aunt Masha sadly recalled.
"When he left me to go back to the hotel where he was staying,
it seemed to me that he was rather calmer.
"When he said good-by, he even made some joke about his having
come to the wrong door.
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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 An International Episode by Henry James: and saw a deep blue ocean lying beneath a deep blue sky,
and flecked now and then with scintillating patches of foam.
A strong, fresh breeze came in through the curtainless casements
and prompted our young men to observe, generally, that it didn't
seem half a bad climate. They made other observations after they
had emerged from their rooms in pursuit of breakfast--a meal
of which they partook in a huge bare hall, where a hundred Negroes,
in white jackets, were shuffling about upon an uncarpeted floor;
where the flies were superabundant, and the tables and dishes covered
over with a strange, voluminous integument of coarse blue gauze;
and where several little boys and girls, who had risen late,
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