| 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: of
Varasikha.
At Hariyupiya he smote the vanguard of the Vrcivans, and the
rear fled
frighted.
6 Three thousand, mailed, in quest of fame, together, on the
Yavyavati, O much-sought Indra,
Vrcivan's sons, falling before the arrow, like bursting vessels
went
to their destruction.
7 He, whose two red Steers, seeking goodly pasture, plying
The Rig Veda |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Confidence by Henry James: making an opulent marriage. At first he had said to himself that,
whether he had held his tongue or spoken, she had already lost her chance;
but with time, somehow, this reflection had lost its weight in the scale.
It conveyed little re-assurance to his irritated conscience--
it had become imponderable and impertinent. At the moment of which I
speak it entirely failed to present itself, even for form's sake;
and as he sat looking at this superior creature who came back
to him out of an episode of his past, he thought of her simply
as an unprotected woman toward whom he had been indelicate.
It is not an agreeable thing for a delicate man like Bernard
Longueville to have to accommodate himself to such an accident,
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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 A Straight Deal by Owen Wister: Western front, and the result would have been the surrender which the
Allies themselves, in the spring of 1917, regarded as a not remote
possibility. America would then have been compelled to face the German
power alone, and to face it long before we had had an opportunity to
assemble our resources and equip our armies. The world was preserved from
all these calamities because the destroyer and the convoy solved the
problem of the submarines, and because back of these agencies of victory
lay Admiral Beatty's squadrons, holding at arm's length the German
surface ships while these comparatively fragile craft were saving the
liberties of the world."
Yes. The High Seas Fleet of Germany, costing her one billion five hundred
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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 Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates by Howard Pyle: was smoking a great cigarro of tobacco, and a goblet of lime
juice and water and rum stood at his elbow on a table. Here, out
of the glare of the heat, it was all very cool and pleasant, with
a sea breeze blowing violently in through the slats, setting them
a-rattling now and then, and stirring Sir Thomas's long hair,
which he had pushed back for the sake of coolness.
The purport of this interview, I may tell you, concerned the
rescue of one Le Sieur Simon, who, together with his wife and
daughter, was held captive by the Spaniards.
This gentleman adventurer (Le Sieur Simon) had, a few years
before, been set up by the buccaneers as governor of the island
Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates |
