| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Edingburgh Picturesque Notes by Robert Louis Stevenson: shock was felt far and near; and the moral shock
travelled with the morning milkmaid into all the suburbs.
The church-bells never sounded more dismally over
Edinburgh than that grey forenoon. Death had made a
brave harvest, and, like Samson, by pulling down one
roof, destroyed many a home. None who saw it can have
forgotten the aspect of the gable; here it was plastered,
there papered, according to the rooms; here the kettle
still stood on the hob, high overhead; and there a cheap
picture of the Queen was pasted over the chimney. So, by
this disaster, you had a glimpse into the life of thirty
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Rig Veda: Rtus, be
A Giver bountiful to us.
11 Drink ye the meath, O Asvins bright with flames, whose acts
are
pure. who with
Rtus accept the sacrifice.
12 With Rtu, through the house-fire, thou, kind Giver, guidest
sacrifice:
Worship the Gods for the pious man.
The Rig Veda |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Soul of the Far East by Percival Lowell: Besides, there is a quiet modesty about the sketch which is itself
taking. To attempt the complete even in a fractional bit of the
cosmos, like a picture, has in it a difficulty akin to the logical
one of proving a universal negative. The possibilities of failure
are enormously increased, and failure is less forgiven for the
assumption. Art might perhaps not unwisely follow the example of
science in such matters where an exhaustive work, which takes the
better part of a lifetime to produce, is invariably entitled by its
erudite author an Elementary Treatise on the subject in hand.
To aid the effect due to simplicity of conception steps in the Far
Oriental's wonderful technique. His brush-strokes are very few in
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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 Cratylus by Plato: are expressive of motion?...But if some names are true and others false, we
can only decide between them, not by counting words, but by appealing to
things. And, if so, we must allow that things may be known without names;
for names, as we have several times admitted, are the images of things; and
the higher knowledge is of things, and is not to be derived from names; and
though I do not doubt that the inventors of language gave names, under the
idea that all things are in a state of motion and flux, I believe that they
were mistaken; and that having fallen into a whirlpool themselves, they are
trying to drag us after them. For is there not a true beauty and a true
good, which is always beautiful and always good? Can the thing beauty be
vanishing away from us while the words are yet in our mouths? And they
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