| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Resurrection by Leo Tolstoy: hearing what was being said around him.
The merry merchant seemed with all his heart to sympathise with
Smelkoff's way of spending his time. "There, old fellow, that was
something like! Real Siberian fashion! He knew what he was about,
no fear! That's the sort of wench for me."
The foreman was stating his conviction, that in some way or other
the expert's conclusions were the important thing. Peter
Gerasimovitch was joking about something with the Jewish clerk,
and they burst out laughing. Nekhludoff answered all the
questions addressed to him in monosyllables and longed only to be
left in peace.
Resurrection |
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 Barlaam and Ioasaph by St. John of Damascus: Zeus with a thunder-bolt, because of Tyndareus, son of
Lakedaemon, and thus perished. Now if Asklepius, though a god,
when struck by a thunder-bolt, could not help himself, how can he
help others?
"Ares is represented as a warlike god, emulous, and covetous of
sheep and other things. But in the end they say he was taken in
adultery with Aphrodite by the child Eros and Hephaestus and was
bound by them. How then can the covetous, the warrior, the
bondman and adulterer be a god?
"Dionysus they show as a god, who leadeth nightly orgies, and
teacheth drunkenness, and carrieth off his neighbours' wives, a
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