| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Songs of Travel by Robert Louis Stevenson: The strains unlike, and how unlike their fate!
You to the blinding palace-yard shall call
The prefect of the singers, and to him,
Listening devout, your valedictory verse
Deliver; he, his attribute fulfilled,
To the island chorus hand your measures on,
Wed now with harmony: so them, at last,
Night after night, in the open hall of dance,
Shall thirty matted men, to the clapped hand,
Intone and bray and bark. Unfortunate!
Paper and print alone shall honour mine.
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Under the Red Robe by Stanley Weyman: other. About mid-day, having followed me for the twentieth time
into the street, he came to the point by asking me rudely if I
did not need my horse.
'No,' I said. 'Why do you ask?'
'Because,' he answered, with an ugly smile, 'this is not a very
healthy place for strangers.'
'Ah!' I retorted. 'But the border air suits me, you see,'
It was a lucky answer, for, taken with my talk the night before,
it puzzled him, by suggesting that I was on the losing side, and
had my reasons for lying near Spain. Before he had done
scratching his head over it, the clatter of hoofs broke the
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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 An Ideal Husband by Oscar Wilde: come and see you to-morrow, father. We can talk over anything you
like. Let me help you on with your cloak, father.
LORD CAVERSHAM. No, sir; I have called this evening for a definite
purpose, and I am going to see it through at all costs to my health
or yours. Put down my cloak, sir.
LORD GORING. Certainly, father. But let us go into another room.
[Rings bell.] There is a dreadful draught here. [Enter PHIPPS.]
Phipps, is there a good fire in the smoking-room?
PHIPPS. Yes, my lord.
LORD GORING. Come in there, father. Your sneezes are quite
heartrending.
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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 Reminiscences of Tolstoy by Leo Tolstoy: of hearing other people's compositions read than my own.
All the events of our life at Yásnaya Polyána
found their echo in one way or another in the letter-box, and no
one was spared, not even the grown-ups.
All our secrets, all our love-affairs, all the incidents of
our complicated life were revealed in the letter-box, and both
household and visitors were good-humoredly made fun of.
Unfortunately, much of the correspondence has been lost, but
bits of it have been preserved by some of us in copies or in
memory. I cannot recall everything interesting that there was in
it, but here are a few of the more interesting things from the
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