| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The School For Scandal by Richard Brinsley Sheridan: I have never seen you tho' I have heard of you very often.--
Mr. Surface--the World says scandalous things of you--but indeed
it is no matter what the world says, for I think one hears nothing
else but scandal.
SURFACE. Just so, indeed, Ma'am.
MRS. CANDOUR. Ah Maria Child--what[!] is the whole affair off
between you and Charles? His extravagance; I presume--The Town
talks of nothing else----
MARIA. I am very sorry, Ma'am, the Town has so little to do.
MRS. CANDOUR. True, true, Child; but there's no stopping people's
Tongues. I own I was hurt to hear it--as I indeed was to learn
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Nana, Miller's Daughter, Captain Burle, Death of Olivier Becaille by Emile Zola: "You sang your numbers marvelously," said the prince.
And with that they began a conversation, but their sentences were
short and their pauses frequent. Nana, indeed, was not always able
to reply. After rubbing cold cream over her arms and face with the
palm of her hand she laid on the grease paint with the corner of a
towel. For one second only she ceased looking in the glass and
smilingly stole a glance at the prince.
"His Highness is spoiling me," she murmured without putting down the
grease paint.
Her task was a complicated one, and the Marquis de Chouard followed
it with an expression of devout enjoyment. He spoke in his turn.
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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 A Treatise on Parents and Children by George Bernard Shaw: they become complicated living magazines of cross rhythms, and, what
is more, make music for others to do all these things to. Stranger
still, though Jacques Dalcroze, like all these great teachers, is the
completest of tyrants, knowing what is right and that he must and will
have the lesson just so or else break his heart (not somebody else's,
observe), yet his school is so fascinating that every woman who sees
it exclaims "Oh, why was I not taught like this!" and elderly
gentlemen excitedly enrol themselves as students and distract classes
of infants by their desperate endeavors to beat two in a bar with one
hand and three with the other, and start off on earnest walks round
the room, taking two steps backward whenever Monsieur Daleroze calls
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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 Heroes by Charles Kingsley: and down, till the boy was tired and footsore, and AEson had
to bear him in his arms, till he came to the mouth of a
lonely cave, at the foot of a mighty cliff.
Above the cliff the snow-wreaths hung, dripping and cracking
in the sun; but at its foot around the cave's mouth grew all
fair flowers and herbs, as if in a garden, ranged in order,
each sort by itself. There they grew gaily in the sunshine,
and the spray of the torrent from above; while from the cave
came the sound of music, and a man's voice singing to the
harp.
Then AEson put down the lad, and whispered -
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