| 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 mighty hundred-knotted bolt.
7 Here are-we sing them loudly forth-our thoughts among-the
best of
songs.
Even lightnings like the blaze of fire.
8 When bidden thoughts, spontaneously advancing, glow, and
with the
stream
Of sacrifice the Kanvas shine.
9 Indra, may we obtain that wealth in horses and in herds of
cows,
The Rig Veda |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Complete Angler by Izaak Walton: past the spring; for, when the mulberry-tree blossoms, many gardeners
observe their forward fruit to be past the danger of frosts; and some
have made the like observation of the Perch's biting.
But bite the Perch will, and that very boldly. And, as one has wittily
observed, if there be twenty or forty in a hole, they may be, at one
standing, all catched one after another; they being, as he says, like the
wicked of the world, not afraid, though their fellows and companions
perish in their sight. And you may observe, that they are not like the
solitary Pike, but love to accompany one another, and march together in
troops.
And the baits for this bold fish are not many: I mean, he will bite as
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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 Maid Marian by Thomas Love Peacock: as nimbly as if he had had an arrow singing behind him.
"Is this lady Matilda, then, so very terrible a damsel?"
said Sir Ralph to brother Michael.
"By no means," said the friar. "She has certainly a high spirit;
but it is the wing of the eagle, without his beak or his claw.
She is as gentle as magnanimous; but it is the gentleness of the
summer wind, which, however lightly it wave the tuft of the pine,
carries with it the intimation of a power, that, if roused
to its extremity, could make it bend to the dust."
"From the warmth of your panegyric, ghostly father," said the knight,
"I should almost suspect you were in love with the damsel."
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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 Ancient Regime by Charles Kingsley: that his laws were still in force; to have shown him Tartarus
crowded with the souls of wicked monarchs, while a few of kingly
race rested in Elysium, and among them old pagans--Inachus, Cecrops,
Erichthon, Triptolemus, and Sesostris--rewarded for ever for having
done their duty, each according to his light, to the flocks which
the gods had committed to their care. It is something to have
spoken to a prince, in such an age, without servility, and without
etiquette, of the frailties and the dangers which beset arbitrary
rulers; to have told him that royalty, "when assumed to content
oneself, is a monstrous tyranny; when assumed to fulfil its duties,
and to conduct an innumerable people as a father conducts his
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