| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Golden Threshold by Sarojini Naidu: seemed things of importance. At the age of twelve she passed the
Matriculation of the Madras University, and awoke to find herself
famous throughout India. "Honestly," she said to me, "I was not
pleased; such things did not appeal to me." But here, in a
letter from Hyderabad, bidding one "share a March morning" with
her, there is, at the mere contact of the sun, this outburst:
"Come and share my exquisite March morning with me: this
sumptuous blaze of gold and sapphire sky; these scarlet lilies
that adorn the sunshine; the voluptuous scents of neem and
champak and serisha that beat upon the languid air with their
implacable sweetness; the thousand little gold and blue and
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Captain Stormfield by Mark Twain: It is like a learned Hindoo showing off how much he knows by saying
Longfellow lives in the United States - as if he lived all over the
United States, and as if the country was so small you couldn't
throw a brick there without hitting him. Between you and me, it
does gravel me, the cool way people from those monster worlds
outside our system snub our little world, and even our system. Of
course we think a good deal of Jupiter, because our world is only a
potato to it, for size; but then there are worlds in other systems
that Jupiter isn't even a mustard-seed to - like the planet Goobra,
for instance, which you couldn't squeeze inside the orbit of
Halley's comet without straining the rivets. Tourists from Goobra
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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 The Children of the Night by Edwin Arlington Robinson: Trembled and swayed with rapture vast
(Long centuries have come and gone),
This ancient plain, when night comes on,
Shakes to a ghostly battle-blast,
Since Persia fell at Marathon.
But into soundless Acheron
The glory of Greek shame was cast:
Long centuries have come and gone,
The suns of Hellas have all shone,
The first has fallen to the last: --
Since Persia fell at Marathon,
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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 Through the Looking-Glass by Lewis Carroll: `Somehow it seems to fill my head with ideas--only I don't
exactly know what they are! However, SOMEBODY killed SOMETHING:
that's clear, at any rate--'
`But oh!' thought Alice, suddenly jumping up, `if I don't make
haste I shall have to go back through the Looking-glass, before
I've seen what the rest of the house is like! Let's have a look
at the garden first!' She was out of the room in a moment, and
ran down stairs--or, at least, it wasn't exactly running, but a
new invention of hers for getting down stairs quickly and easily,
as Alice said to herself. She just kept the tips of her fingers
on the hand-rail, and floated gently down without even touching
Through the Looking-Glass |
