| 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:
1. RAISING his voice the King hath flowed upon his way: invested
with
the waters he would win the kine.
The fleece retains his solid parts as though impure, and bright
and
cleansed he seeks the special place of Gods.
2 Thou, Soma, art effused for Indra by the men, balmed in the
wood as
wave, Sage, Viewer of mankind.
Full many are the paths whereon thou mayest go: a thousand
The Rig Veda |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Lay Morals by Robert Louis Stevenson: done with the light of the sun and the moon; welcome eternal
light, eternal life, everlasting love, everlasting praise,
everlasting glory. Praise to Him that sits upon the throne,
and to the Lamb for ever! Bless the Lord, O my soul, that
hath pardoned all my iniquities in the blood of His Son, and
healed all my diseases. Bless Him, O all ye His angels that
excel in strength, ye ministers of His that do His pleasure.
Bless the Lord, O my soul!' (8)
After having ascended the gallows ladder he again broke forth
in the following words of touching eloquence: 'And now I
leave off to speak any more to creatures, and begin my
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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 Faraday as a Discoverer by John Tyndall: bar, a current in the opposite direction rushed through the wire.
The same effect was produced when, on holding the helix in the line
of dip, a bar of iron was thrust into it. Here, however, the earth
acted on the coil through the intermediation of the bar of iron.
He abandoned the bar and simply set a copper plate spinning in a
horizontal plane; he knew that the earth's lines of magnetic force
then crossed the plate at an angle of about 70degrees. When the plate
spun round, the lines of force were intersected and induced currents
generated, which produced their proper effect when carried from the
plate to the galvanometer. 'When the plate was in the magnetic
meridian, or in any other plane coinciding with the magnetic dip,
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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 The Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving: midst of the tree: he paused, and ceased whistling but, on
looking more narrowly, perceived that it was a place where the
tree had been scathed by lightning, and the white wood laid bare.
Suddenly he heard a groan--his teeth chattered, and his knees
smote against the saddle: it was but the rubbing of one huge
bough upon another, as they were swayed about by the breeze. He
passed the tree in safety, but new perils lay before him.
About two hundred yards from the tree, a small brook crossed
the road, and ran into a marshy and thickly-wooded glen, known by
the name of Wiley's Swamp. A few rough logs, laid side by side,
served for a bridge over this stream. On that side of the road
The Legend of Sleepy Hollow |
