| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Odyssey by Homer: distress of mind. Circe, that great and cunning goddess, sent us
a fair wind that blew dead aft and staid steadily with us
keeping our sails all the time well filled; so we did whatever
wanted doing to the ship's gear and let her go as the wind and
helmsman headed her. All day long her sails were full as she
held her course over the sea, but when the sun went down and
darkness was over all the earth, we got into the deep waters of
the river Oceanus, where lie the land and city of the Cimmerians
who live enshrouded in mist and darkness which the rays of the
sun never pierce neither at his rising nor as he goes down again
out of the heavens, but the poor wretches live in one long
 The Odyssey |
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 Amazing Interlude by Mary Roberts Rinehart: Will you guess, mademoiselle? Or you, Marie? Rene?"
"A tear?" ventured Sara Lee.
"But - do I look like weeping?"
He did not, indeed. He stood, tall and young and smiling before them,
and produced from his pocket the walnut.
"Perceive!" he said, breaking it open and showing the kernel. "Has human
eye ever before seen it?" He thrust it into Marie's open mouth. "And
it is gone! Voila tout!"
It was that evening, while Sara Lee cut bandages and Henri rolled them,
that she asked him what his work was. He looked rather surprised, and
rolled for a moment without replying. Then: "I am a man of all work,"
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