| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Aeneid by Virgil: Sev'n orbs within a spacious round they close:
One stirs the fire, and one the bellows blows.
The hissing steel is in the smithy drown'd;
The grot with beaten anvils groans around.
By turns their arms advance, in equal time;
By turns their hands descend, and hammers chime.
They turn the glowing mass with crooked tongs;
The fiery work proceeds, with rustic songs.
While, at the Lemnian god's command, they urge
Their labors thus, and ply th' Aeolian forge,
The cheerful morn salutes Evander's eyes,
Aeneid |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Essays & Lectures by Oscar Wilde: questions, as well as in disregarding those deeper motives of
religion, which are such important factors in early civilisation,
and whose influence Aristotle seems to have clearly apprehended,
when he says that the aim of primitive society was not merely life
but the higher life, and that in the origin of society utility is
not the sole motive, but that there is something spiritual in it
if, at least, 'spiritual' will bring out the meaning of that
complex expression [Greek text which cannot be reproduced].
Otherwise, the whole account in the REPUBLIC of primitive man will
always remain as a warning against the intrusion of A PRIORI
speculations in the domain appropriate to induction.
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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 La Grenadiere by Honore de Balzac: boy, lying in the grass at his mother's side, basked in her eyes like
a lover and kissed her feet. Marie, the restless one, gathered flowers
for her, and brought them with a subdued look, standing on tiptoe to
put a girlish kiss on her lips. And the pale woman, with the great
tired eyes and languid movements, never uttered a word of complaint,
and smiled upon her children, so full of life and health--it was a
sublime picture, lacking no melancholy autumn pomp of yellow leaves
and half-despoiled branches, nor the softened sunlight and pale clouds
of the skies of Touraine.
At last the doctor forbade Mme. Willemsens to leave her room. Every
day it was brightened by the flowers that she loved, and her children
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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 Vailima Prayers & Sabbath Morn by Robert Louis Stevenson: missionaries, where the day naturally ended with this homely,
patriarchal custom. Not only were the religious scruples of the
natives satisfied, but, what we did not foresee, our own
respectability - and incidentally that of our retainers - became
assured, and the influence of Tusitala increased tenfold.
After all work and meals were finished, the 'pu,' or war conch, was
sounded from the back veranda and the front, so that it might be
heard by all. I don't think it ever occurred to us that there was
any incongruity in the use of the war conch for the peaceful
invitation to prayer. In response to its summons the white members
of the family took their usual places in one end of the large hall,
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