| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Helen of Troy And Other Poems by Sara Teasdale: The Blind
The birds are all a-building,
They say the world's a-flower,
And still I linger lonely
Within a barren bower.
I weave a web of fancies
Of tears and darkness spun.
How shall I sing of sunlight
Who never saw the sun?
I hear the pipes a-blowing,
But yet I may not dance,
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Story of an African Farm by Olive Schreiner: Gregory, as he worked in the loft, took no notice of it beyond stuffing a
sack into the broken pane to keep it out; and, in spite of the pelt and
patter, Em's clear voice might be heard through the open trap-door from the
dining room, where she sat at work, singing the "Blue Water:"
"And take me away,
And take me away,
And take me away,
To the Blue Water"--
that quaint, childish song of the people, that has a world of sweetness,
and sad, vague yearning when sung over and over dreamily by a woman's voice
as she sits alone at her work.
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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 Lay Morals by Robert Louis Stevenson: eyes, with a strange hard expression, something like a smile.
'Do I mind for God, my girl?' he said; 'that's what it's come
to be now, do I mind for God?'
'Uncle Jonathan,' she said, getting up and taking him by the
arm; 'you sit down again, where you were sitting. There, sit
still; I'll have no more of this; you'll do yourself a
mischief. Come, take a drink of this good ale, and I'll warm
a tankard for you. La, we'll pull through, you'll see. I'm
young, as you say, and it's my turn to carry the bundle; and
don't you worry your bile, or we'll have sickness, too, as
well as sorrow.'
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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 The Voyage Out by Virginia Woolf: had lain among grim men, flat on the turf, aiming her gun at the white
turrets beneath them, screening her eyes to pierce through the smoke!
So thinking, her foot stirred restlessly, and she exclaimed:
"I don't call this _life_, do you?"
"What do you call life?" said St. John.
"Fighting--revolution," she said, still gazing at the doomed city.
"You only care for books, I know."
"You're quite wrong," said St. John.
"Explain," she urged, for there were no guns to be aimed at bodies,
and she turned to another kind of warfare.
"What do I care for? People," he said.
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