| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Children of the Night by Edwin Arlington Robinson: In with them, and tore down the slaughter-house.
The Altar
Alone, remote, nor witting where I went,
I found an altar builded in a dream --
A fiery place, whereof there was a gleam
So swift, so searching, and so eloquent
Of upward promise, that love's murmur, blent
With sorrow's warning, gave but a supreme
Unending impulse to that human stream
Whose flood was all for the flame's fury bent.
Alas! I said, -- the world is in the wrong.
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Agnes Grey by Anne Bronte: as ardently implored for as my own; nay, even THAT was the
principal object of my heart's desire. I might have been deceiving
myself; but that idea gave me confidence to ask, and power to hope
I did not ask in vain. As for the primroses, I kept two of them in
a glass in my room until they were completely withered, and the
housemaid threw them out; and the petals of the other I pressed
between the leaves of my Bible - I have them still, and mean to
keep them always.
CHAPTER XIV - THE RECTOR
THE following day was as fine as the preceding one. Soon after
breakfast Miss Matilda, having galloped and blundered through a few
 Agnes Grey |