| 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 house
with precious things.
8 He amplifies his lordly might, with kings he slays: e'en
mid alarms
he dwells secure
In great or lesser fight none checks him, none subdues,-the
wielder of
the thunderbolt.
HYMN XLI. Varuna, Mitra, Aryaman.
The Rig Veda |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from American Notes by Rudyard Kipling: which they are making for all sorts of desirable goals. This he
called a statement or purview of American politics.
I went almost directly afterward to a saloon where gentlemen
interested in ward politics nightly congregate. They were not
pretty persons. Some of them were bloated, and they all swore
cheerfully till the heavy gold watch-chains on their fat stomachs
rose and fell again; but they talked over their liquor as men who
had power and unquestioned access to places of trust and profit.
The magazine writer discussed theories of government; these men
the practice. They had been there. They knew all about it.
They banged their fists on the table and spoke of political
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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 Records of a Family of Engineers by Robert Louis Stevenson: Watt, with his squad of ten men, remained on the beacon
throughout the day. As it blew fresh from the N.W. in the
evening, it was found impracticable either to land the
building artificers or to take the artificers off the beacon,
and they were accordingly left there all night, but in
circumstances very different from those of the 1st of this
month. The house, being now in a more complete state, was
provided with bedding, and they spent the night pretty well,
though they complained of having been much disturbed at the
time of high-water by the shaking and tremulous motion of
their house and by the plashing noise of the sea upon mortar
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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 Charmides by Plato: Dion, who are said to 'have been well inclined to philosophy, and well able
to dispose the mind of their brother Dionysius in the same course,' at a
time when they could not have been more than six or seven years of age--
also foolish allusions, such as the comparison of the Athenian empire to
the empire of Darius, which show a spirit very different from that of
Plato; and mistakes of fact, as e.g. about the Thirty Tyrants, whom the
writer of the letters seems to have confused with certain inferior
magistrates, making them in all fifty-one. These palpable errors and
absurdities are absolutely irreconcileable with their genuineness. And as
they appear to have a common parentage, the more they are studied, the more
they will be found to furnish evidence against themselves. The Seventh,
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