| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Princess by Alfred Tennyson: To assail this gray preëminence of man!
You grant me license; might I use it? think;
Ere half be done perchance your life may fail;
Then comes the feebler heiress of your plan,
And takes and ruins all; and thus your pains
May only make that footprint upon sand
Which old-recurring waves of prejudice
Resmooth to nothing: might I dread that you,
With only Fame for spouse and your great deeds
For issue, yet may live in vain, and miss,
Meanwhile, what every woman counts her due,
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from De Profundis by Oscar Wilde: culture, and all external possessions, be they good or evil.
I bore up against everything with some stubbornness of will and
much rebellion of nature, till I had absolutely nothing left in the
world but one thing. I had lost my name, my position, my
happiness, my freedom, my wealth. I was a prisoner and a pauper.
But I still had my children left. Suddenly they were taken away
from me by the law. It was a blow so appalling that I did not know
what to do, so I flung myself on my knees, and bowed my head, and
wept, and said, 'The body of a child is as the body of the Lord: I
am not worthy of either.' That moment seemed to save me. I saw
then that the only thing for me was to accept everything. Since
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