| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Koran: have revealed it, an Arabic Koran; haply ye may understand.
We tell thee the best of stories, in inspiring thee with this Koran,
though thou wert before it among the heedless.
When Joseph said to his father, 'O my sire! verily, I saw eleven
stars, and the sun, and the moon,- I saw them adoring me!'
He said, 'O my boy! toll not thy vision to thy brethren, for they
will plot a plot against thee; verily, the devil is to man an open
foe.'
Thus does thy Lord choose thee, and teach thee the interpretation of
sayings, and fulfil His favour upon thee, and upon Jacob's people,
as He fulfilled it upon thy two forefathers before thee, Abraham and
The Koran |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Brother of Daphne by Dornford Yates: down, he left England, to study, I understood. He always drew
rather well. Then one spring morning I struck him in Piccadilly,
by the railings of the Green Park. He was standing still, a
large, blue air-ball in his hand, steadfastly regarding the
Porters' Rest. Our greeting was characteristic.
"Well, George," said I. He looked round.
"Hullo, old chap." He pointed to the Rest. "Rather nice, that.
Pity there aren't more. Why didn't they keep the Pike at Hyde
Park Corner?"
I shrugged my shoulders. "I begged them to," said I. "But you
know what they are."
The Brother of Daphne |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Lock and Key Library by Julian Hawthorne, Ed.: superior he requested my decision; observing that, from the manner
in which he had seen me examine the details of the architecture, he
could not be mistaken in his confidence that I was a connoisseur.
All eyes were turned upon me. As a shy man, this made me blush; as
a vain man, the blush was accompanied with delight. It might
easily have happened that such an appeal, acting at once upon
shyness and ignorance, would have inflamed my wrath; but the appeal
happening to be directed on a point which I had recently
investigated and thoroughly mastered, I was flattered at the
opportunity of a victorious display.
The pleasure of my triumph diffused itself over my feelings towards
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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 New Arabian Nights by Robert Louis Stevenson: startles the man like the touch of a toad; the inequalities of the
pavement shake his heart into his mouth; a piece of denser darkness
threatens an ambuscade or a chasm in the pathway; and where the air
is brighter, the houses put on strange and bewildering appearances,
as if to lead him farther from his way. For Denis, who had to
regain his inn without attracting notice, there was real danger as
well as mere discomfort in the walk; and he went warily and boldly
at once, and at every corner paused to make an observation.
He had been for some time threading a lane so narrow that he could
touch a wall with either hand, when it began to open out and go
sharply downward. Plainly this lay no longer in the direction of
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