| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Padre Ignacio by Owen Wister: said the first voice. "God can be better served in other places,"
answered the second. As he lay listening he saw Seville again, and the
trees of Aranhal, where he had been born. The wind was blowing through
them, and in their branches he could hear the nightingales. "Empty!
Empty!" he said, aloud. And he lay for two days and nights hearing the
wind and the nightingales in the far trees of Aranhal. But Felipe,
watching, only heard the Padre crying through the hours, "Empty! Empty!"
Then the wind in the trees died down, and the Padre could get out of bed,
and soon be in the garden. But the voices within him still talked all the
while as he sat watching the sails when they passed between the
headlands. Their words, falling for ever the same way, beat his spirit
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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 Market-Place by Harold Frederic: But such nobility of mind and temper with it all! He never
dreamed of suggesting that I should walk in the same path.
From my earliest childhood I cannot remember his ever
putting a limitation upon me that wasn't entirely sensible
and generous. I must have been an extremely trying daughter,
but he never said so; he never looked or acted as if he
thought so.--But I never stop when I begin talking of
my father."
"It's always very sweet to me to hear you talk of him,"
Lady Cressage put in. "One knows so few people who feel
that way about their fathers!"
 The Market-Place |