| 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: his
own supreme dominion.
2 Here magnify his great heroic exploits, most glorious One,
enriching
men with bounties,
Whose will is like a Sovran in assembly, who rules the people,
Conqueror, all-surpassing.
3 Hither let Indra come from earth or heaven, hither with speech
from
firmament or ocean;
With Maruts, from the realm of light to aid us, or from a distance,
The Rig Veda |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from A Start in Life by Honore de Balzac: his best customers.
CHAPTER III
THE TRAVELLERS
As Pierrotin issued from the Cafe de l'Echiquier, after treating the
valet, he saw in the gate-way of the Lion d'Argent the lady and the
young man in whom his perspicacity at once detected customers, for the
lady with outstretched neck and anxious face was evidently looking for
him. She was dressed in a black-silk gown that was dyed, a brown
bonnet, an old French cashmere shawl, raw-silk stockings, and low
shoes; and in her hand she carried a straw bag and a blue umbrella.
This woman, who had once been beautiful, seemed to be about forty
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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 Two Brothers by Honore de Balzac: Coming home one day from his professional round, the malignant and
vicious old man came across a bewitching little girl at the edge of
some fields that lay along the avenue de Tivoli. Hearing the horse,
the child sprang up from the bottom of one of the many brooks which
are to be seen from the heights of Issoudun, threading the meadows
like ribbons of silver on a green robe. Naiad-like, she rose suddenly
on the doctor's vision, showing the loveliest virgin head that
painters ever dreamed of. Old Rouget, who knew the whole country-side,
did not know this miracle of beauty. The child, who was half naked,
wore a forlorn little petticoat of coarse woollen stuff, woven in
alternate strips of brown and white, full of holes and very ragged. A
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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 Theaetetus by Plato: you mean to speak of this or that thing by itself alone. It should not be
called itself, or that, or each, or alone, or this, or the like; for these
go about everywhere and are applied to all things, but are distinct from
them; whereas, if the first elements could be described, and had a
definition of their own, they would be spoken of apart from all else. But
none of these primeval elements can be defined; they can only be named, for
they have nothing but a name, and the things which are compounded of them,
as they are complex, are expressed by a combination of names, for the
combination of names is the essence of a definition. Thus, then, the
elements or letters are only objects of perception, and cannot be defined
or known; but the syllables or combinations of them are known and
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