| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Aesop's Fables by Aesop: his face, and bade him do his worst.
Love can tame the wildest.
The Bundle of Sticks
An old man on the point of death summoned his sons around him
to give them some parting advice. He ordered his servants to
bring in a faggot of sticks, and said to his eldest son: "Break
it." The son strained and strained, but with all his efforts was
unable to break the Bundle. The other sons also tried, but none
of them was successful. "Untie the faggots," said the father,
"and each of you take a stick." When they had done so, he called
out to them: "Now, break," and each stick was easily broken. "You
Aesop's Fables |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Theaetetus by Plato: truth which we were taught or which we inherited has never been
contradicted in all our experience and is therefore confirmed by it. Who
can resist an idea which is presented to him in a general form in every
moment of his life and of which he finds no instance to the contrary? The
greater part of what is sometimes regarded as the a priori intuition of
space is really the conception of the various geometrical figures of which
the properties have been revealed by mathematical analysis. And the
certainty of these properties is immeasurably increased to us by our
finding that they hold good not only in every instance, but in all the
consequences which are supposed to flow from them.
Neither must we forget that our idea of space, like our other ideas, has a
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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 Riverman by Stewart Edward White: his gloves, and leaned his stick against its brim.
"I have brought you here, among other purposes, to hear from me a
little brief wisdom drawn from experience and the observation of
life," he began, addressing his expectant and curious guests. "That
wisdom is briefly this: there comes a time in the affairs of every
household when a man must assert himself as the ruler. In all the
details he may depend on the woman's judgment, experience, and
knowledge, but when it comes to the big crises, where life is
deflected into one channel or the other, then, unless the man does
the deciding, he is lost for ever, and his happiness, and the
happiness of those who depend on him. This is abstruse, but I come
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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 Father Sergius by Leo Tolstoy: people not wealthy but born and brought up in Court circles, rich
people who ingratiate themselves into the Court set, and people
neither rich nor belonging to the Court but who ingratiate
themselves into the first and second sets.
Kasatsky did not belong to the first two sets, but was readily
welcomed in the others. On entering society he determined to
have relations with some society lady, and to his own surprise
quickly accomplished this purpose. He soon realized, however,
that the circles in which he moved were not the highest, and that
though he was received in the highest spheres he did not belong
to them. They were polite to him, but showed by their whole
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