| 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: 7 With all-sustaining opulence, Asvins, come hitherward to
us,
Ye rich and noble Heroes, ne'er to be o'erthrown.
8 To welcome this mine offering, O ye Indra-like Nasatyas,
come
As Gods of best accord this day with other Gods.
9 For we, like Vyasva, lifting up our voice like oxen, call
on you:
With all your loving kindness, Sages, come to us.
10 O Rsi, laud the Asvins well. Will they not listen to thy
call?
The Rig Veda |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from New Arabian Nights by Robert Louis Stevenson: mortification, took hold upon Elvira's mind; and, as for Leon, he
seemed to be reading the stage directions for a lugubrious fifth
act.
"This is your fault," said Elvira: "this is what comes of fancying
things!"
Again Leon pulled the bell-rope; again the solemn tocsin awoke the
echoes of the inn; and ere they had died away, a light glimmered in
the carriage entrance, and a powerful voice was heard upraised and
tremulous with wrath.
"What's all this?" cried the tragic host through the spars of the
gate. "Hard upon twelve, and you come clamouring like Prussians at
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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 Salammbo by Gustave Flaubert: up again. Three phalangites, in the fourth dilochia of the twelfth
syntagmata, killed one another with knives in a dispute about a rat.
All regretted their families, and their houses; the poor their hive-
shaped huts, with the shells on the threshold and the hanging net, and
the patricians their large halls filled with bluish shadows, where at
the most indolent hour of the day they used to rest listening to the
vague noise of the streets mingled with the rustling of the leaves as
they stirred in their gardens;--to go deeper into the thought of this,
and to enjoy it more, they would half close their eyelids, only to be
roused by the shock of a wound. Every minute there was some
engagement, some fresh alarm; the towers were burning, the Eaters of
Salammbo |
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 Plain Tales from the Hills by Rudyard Kipling: describing the conduct of Michele. Which letter filtered through
the Proper Channels, and ended in the transfer of Michele up-
country once more, on the Imperial salary of sixty-six rupees a
month.
So he and Miss Vezzis were married with great state and ancientry;
and now there are several little D'Cruzes sprawling about the
verandahs of the Central Telegraph Office.
But, if the whole revenue of the Department he serves were to be
his reward Michele could never, never repeat what he did at Tibasu
for the sake of Miss Vezzis the nurse-girl.
Which proves that, when a man does good work out of all proportion
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