| 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: enmities
and keep them far remote.
Our guard to be adored is Savitar this God. We ask for freedom
and
complete felicity.
10 Eat strength and fatness in the pasture, kine, who are balmed
at
the reservoir and at the seat of Law.
So let your body be our body's medicine. We ask for freedom
and
complete felicity.
The Rig Veda |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from A Sentimental Journey by Laurence Sterne: the side of Monsieur.
2dly. It is required on the part of Madame, that Monsieur shall
lie the whole night through in his ROBE DE CHAMBRE.
Rejected: inasmuch as Monsieur is not worth a ROBE DE CHAMBRE; he
having nothing in his portmanteau but six shirts and a black silk
pair of breeches.
The mentioning the silk pair of breeches made an entire change of
the article, - for the breeches were accepted as an equivalent for
the ROBE DE CHAMBRE; and so it was stipulated and agreed upon, that
I should lie in my black silk breeches all night.
3dly. It was insisted upon and stipulated for by the lady, that
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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 Country of the Pointed Firs by Sarah Orne Jewett: vaguely said to be over Thomaston way. But one evening, just as
the supper-table was cleared and "readied up," and Mrs. Todd had
put her large apron over her head and stepped forth for an
evening stroll in the garden, the unexpected happened. She heard
the sound of wheels, and gave an excited cry to me, as I sat by the
window, that Mrs. Fosdick was coming right up the street.
"She may not be considerate, but she's dreadful good company,"
said Mrs. Todd hastily, coming back a few steps from the
neighborhood of the gate. "No, she ain't a mite considerate, but
there's a small lobster left over from your tea; yes, it's a real
mercy there's a lobster. Susan Fosdick might just as well have
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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 One Basket by Edna Ferber: the dim well of the theater, and sometimes, in a musical show,
they directed a quip at him, and he liked it. He could pick out
the critics as they came down the aisle, and even had a nodding
acquaintance with two of them.
"Kelly, of the Herald," he would say carelessly. "Bean. of
the Trib. They're all afraid of him."
So he frolicked, ponderously. In New York he might have been
called a Man About Town.
And he was lonesome. He was very lonesome. So he searched about
in his mind and brought from the dim past the memory of the
luxuriously furnished establishment of which he used to dream in
One Basket |
