| 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: Where they like swallows coming out of time
Will wonder why they came: but hark the bell
For dinner, let us go!'
And in we streamed
Among the columns, pacing staid and still
By twos and threes, till all from end to end
With beauties every shade of brown and fair
In colours gayer than the morning mist,
The long hall glittered like a bed of flowers.
How might a man not wander from his wits
Pierced through with eyes, but that I kept mine own
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Pupil by Henry James: perfectly well, and we won't have any more silly experiments, will
we? They're too absurd. It's Mr. Pemberton's place - every one in
his place. You in yours, your papa in his, me in mine - n'est-ce
pas, cheri? We'll all forget how foolish we've been and have
lovely times."
She continued to talk and to surge vaguely about the little draped
stuffy salon while Pemberton sat with the boy, whose colour
gradually came back; and she mixed up her reasons, hinting that
there were going to be changes, that the other children might
scatter (who knew? - Paula had her ideas) and that then it might be
fancied how much the poor old parent-birds would want the little
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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 Ballads by Robert Louis Stevenson: But down in the depths of the valley the day was not begun.
In the blue of the woody twilight burned red the cocoa-husk,
And the women and men of the clan went forth to bathe in the dusk,
A word that began to go round, a word, a whisper, a start:
Hope that leaped in the bosom, fear that knocked on the heart:
"See, the priest is not risen - look, for his door is fast!
He is going to name the victims; he is going to help us at last."
Thrice rose the sun to noon; and ever, like one of the dead,
The priest lay still in his house with the roar of the sea in his head;
There was never a foot on the floor, there was never a whisper of speech;
Only the leering tikis stared on the blinding beach.
Ballads |
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 Mother by Owen Wister: not stealing or something, and you cannot put him in prison, what are you
going to do to him, Richard?'"
"As this was a question which I had frequently asked myself during the
night, having found no satisfactory answer to it, I said: 'What would you
do in my place, Ethel?' But Ethel knew."
"'I should find out when he sails, and meet his steamer with a cowhide.'"
"'Then he would sue me for damages.'"
"'That would be nothing, if you got a few good cuts in on him.'"
"'Ethel,' I said, 'please follow me carefully. I should like dearly to
cowhide him. and for the sake of argument we will consider it done Then
comes the lawsuit. Then I get up and say that I beat him because he made
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