| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia by Samuel Johnson: resistance to the different density of matter through which we are
to pass. You will be necessarily up-borne by the air if you can
renew any impulse upon it faster than the air can recede from the
pressure."
"But the exercise of swimming," said the Prince, "is very
laborious; the strongest limbs are soon wearied. I am afraid the
act of flying will be yet more violent; and wings will be of no
great use unless we can fly further than we can swim."
"The labour of rising from the ground," said the artist, "will be
great, as we see it in the heavier domestic fowls; but as we mount
higher the earth's attraction and the body's gravity will be
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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 In a German Pension by Katherine Mansfield: Unyoking Pegasus, thought I. Death spasms of his Odes to Solitude! There
were possibilities in that young woman for an inspiration, not to mention a
dedication, and from that moment his suffering temperament took up its bed
and walked.
They retired after the meal, leaving us to discuss them at leisure.
"There is a likeness," mused the Frau Doktor. "Quite. What a manner she
has. Such reserve, such a tender way with the child."
"Pity she has the child to attend to," exclaimed the student from Bonn. He
had hitherto relied upon three scars and a ribbon to produce an effect, but
the sister of a Baroness demanded more than these.
Absorbing days followed. Had she been one whit less beautifully born we
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