| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Grimm's Fairy Tales by Brothers Grimm: she raised up her voice to it, and said, 'Thou blowest through every
tree and under every leaf--hast thou not seen my white dove?' 'No,'
said the night-wind, 'but I will ask three other winds; perhaps they
have seen it.' Then the east wind and the west wind came, and said
they too had not seen it, but the south wind said, 'I have seen the
white dove--he has fled to the Red Sea, and is changed once more into
a lion, for the seven years are passed away, and there he is fighting
with a dragon; and the dragon is an enchanted princess, who seeks to
separate him from you.' Then the night-wind said, 'I will give thee
counsel. Go to the Red Sea; on the right shore stand many rods--count
them, and when thou comest to the eleventh, break it off, and smite
 Grimm's Fairy Tales |
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 Princess by Alfred Tennyson: Take, break her: strongly groomed and straitly curbed
She might not rank with those detestable
That let the bantling scald at home, and brawl
Their rights and wrongs like potherbs in the street.
They say she's comely; there's the fairer chance:
~I~ like her none the less for rating at her!
Besides, the woman wed is not as we,
But suffers change of frame. A lusty brace
Of twins may weed her of her folly. Boy,
The bearing and the training of a child
Is woman's wisdom.'
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