| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Astoria by Washington Irving: over rugged mountains and immeasurable plains lay before them,
which they must painfully perform on foot, and everything
necessary for subsistence or defense must be carried on their
shoulders. Their dismay, however, was but transient, and they
immediately set to work, with that prompt expediency produced by
the exigencies of the wilderness, to fit themselves for the
change in their condition.
Their first attention was to select from their baggage such
articles as were indispensable to their journey; to make them up
into convenient packs, and to deposit the residue in caches. The
whole day was consumed in these occupations; at night, they made
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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 Phoenix and the Turtle by William Shakespeare: That defunctive music can,
Be the death-defying swan,
Lest the requiem lack his right.
And thou, treble-dated crow,
That thy sable gender mak'st
With the breath thou giv'st and tak'st,
'Mongst our mourners shalt thou go.
Here the anthem doth commence:
Love and constancy is dead;
Phoenix and the turtle fled
In a mutual flame from hence.
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