| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Elizabeth and her German Garden by Marie Annette Beauchamp: and sending up sweet odours as she works.
December 7th.--I have been to England. I went for at least
a month and stayed a week in a fog and was blown home again in a gale.
Twice I fled before the fogs into the country to see friends
with gardens, but it was raining, and except the beautiful lawns
(not to be had in the Fatherland) and the infinite possibilities,
there was nothing to interest the intelligent and garden-loving foreigner,
for the good reason that you cannot be interested in gardens under
an <119> umbrella. So I went back to the fogs, and after groping
about for a few days more began to long inordinately for Germany.
A terrific gale sprang up after I had started, and the journey both
Elizabeth and her German Garden |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Pericles by William Shakespeare: None that beheld him, but, like lesser lights,
Did vail their crowns to his supremacy:
Where now his son's like a glow-worm in the night,
The which hath fire in darkness, none in light:
Whereby I see that Time's the king of men,
He's both their parent, and he is their grave,
And gives them what he will, not what they crave.
SIMONIDES.
What, are you merry, knights?
KNIGHTS.
Who can be other in this royal presence?
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