| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Second Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling: People of the Rocks--the busy, furious, black wild bees of
India; and, as Mowgli knew well, all trails turned off half a
mile before they reached the gorge. For centuries the Little
People had hived and swarmed from cleft to cleft, and swarmed
again, staining the white marble with stale honey, and made
their combs tall and deep in the dark of the inner caves, where
neither man nor beast nor fire nor water had ever touched them.
The length of the gorge on both siaes was hung as it were with
black shimmery velvet curtains, and Mowgli sank as he looked,
for those were the clotted millions of the sleeping bees.
There were other lumps and festoons and things like decayed
The Second Jungle Book |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Aesop's Fables by Aesop: It happened that a Fisher, after fishing all day, caught only
a little fish. "Pray, let me go, master," said the Fish. "I am
much too small for your eating just now. If you put me back into
the river I shall soon grow, then you can make a fine meal off
me."
"Nay, nay, my little Fish," said the Fisher, "I have you now.
I may not catch you hereafter."
A little thing in hand is worth more than
a great thing in prospect.
Avaricious and Envious
Two neighbours came before Jupiter and prayed him to grant
Aesop's Fables |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Works of Samuel Johnson by Samuel Johnson: Alpinas, ah dura, nives, et frigora Rheni
Me sine sola vides. Ah te ne frigora laedant!
Ah tibi ne teneras glacies secet aspera plantas! Ec. x. 42.
Here cooling fountains roll through flow'ry meads,
Here woods, Lycoris, lift their verdant heads;
Here could I wear my careless life away,
And in thy arms insensibly decay.
Instead of that, me frantick love detains,
'Mid foes, and dreadful darts, and bloody plains:
While you--and can my soul the tale believe,
Far from your country, lonely wand'ring leave
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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 The Poems of Goethe, Bowring, Tr. by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe: But an intellect clear, which bade him use sensible language.
Soon he collected his thoughts, and quietly said to the maiden:--
"Let me speak, my child, and let me answer your questions.
"'Tis for your sake alone I have come,--why seek to conceal it?
For I happily live with two affectionate parents,
Whom I faithfully help to look after our house and possessions,
Being an only son, while numerous are our employments.
I look after the field work; the house is carefully managed
By my father; my mother the hostelry cheers and enlivens.
But you also have doubtless found out how greatly the servants,
Sometimes by fraud, and sometimes by levity, worry their mistress,
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