| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Helen of Troy And Other Poems by Sara Teasdale: My heart that beats too fast will rest too soon;
I shall not know if it be night or noon, --
Yet shall I struggle in the dark for breath?
Will no one fight the Terror for my sake,
The heavy darkness that no dawn will break?
How can they leave me in that dark alone,
Who loved the joy of light and warmth so much,
And thrilled so with the sense of sound and touch, --
How can they shut me underneath a stone?
Anadyomene
The wide, bright temple of the world I found,
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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 Mansion by Henry van Dyke: were given in the mansion during December, after which the father
called the son's attention to the fact that over a hundred
million dollars
had sat around the board.
But on Christmas Eve father and son were dining together without
guests,
and their talk across the broad table, glittering with silver and
cut glass, and softly lit by shaded candles, was intimate, though
a little
slow at times. The elder man was in rather a rare mood, more
expansive and
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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 Madam How and Lady Why by Charles Kingsley: reasonable to suppose that this glen has changed its shape, as
everything else on earth has done. Besides, I told you not that
Madam How had made the glen, but that she was making it, and as
yet has only half finished. That is my first guess; and my next
guess is that water is making the glen--water, and nothing else.
You open your young eyes. And I do not blame you. I looked at
this very glen for fifteen years before I made that guess; and I
have looked at it some ten years since, to make sure that my guess
held good. For man after all is very blind, my dear boy, and very
stupid, and cannot see what lies under his own feet all day long;
and if Lady Why, and He whom Lady Why obeys, were not very patient
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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 Emma by Jane Austen: this is quite unnecessary; Frank knows a puddle of water when he
sees it, and as to Mrs. Bates's, he may get there from the Crown
in a hop, step, and jump."
They were permitted to go alone; and with a cordial nod from one,
and a graceful bow from the other, the two gentlemen took leave.
Emma remained very well pleased with this beginning of the acquaintance,
and could now engage to think of them all at Randalls any hour of
the day, with full confidence in their comfort.
CHAPTER VI
The next morning brought Mr. Frank Churchill again. He came with
Mrs. Weston, to whom and to Highbury he seemed to take very cordially.
Emma |
