| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from My Aunt Margaret's Mirror by Walter Scott: reflection of our own; or, as in the spells of Hallowe'en, which
we learned in childhood, some unknown form may be seen peeping
over our shoulder. In short, when I am in a ghost-seeing humour,
I make my handmaiden draw the green curtains over the mirror
before I go into the room, so that she may have the first shock
of the apparition, if there be any to be seen, But, to tell you
the truth, this dislike to look into a mirror in particular times
and places has, I believe, its original foundation in a story
which came to me by tradition from my grandmother, who was a
party concerned in the scene of which I will now tell you."
*
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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 Children of the Night by Edwin Arlington Robinson: [This text was first published in 1897, this etext was transcribed
from a 1905 printing of the 1897 edition.]
The Children of the Night
A Book of Poems by Edwin Arlington Robinson
To the Memory of my Father and Mother
Contents
The Children of the Night
Three Quatrains
The World
An Old Story
Ballade of a Ship
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