| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Enoch Arden, &c. by Alfred Tennyson: The sea-kings' daughter as happy as fair,
Blissful bride of a blissful heir,
Bride of the heir of the kings of the sea--
O joy to the people and joy to the throne,
Come to us, love us, and make us your own:
For Saxon or Dane or Norman we,
Teuton or Celt, or whatever we be,
We are each all Dane in our welcome of thee,
Alexandra!
ODE
SUNG AT THE OPENING OF THE INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITION.
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Riders of the Purple Sage by Zane Grey: The simple question seemed unanswerable except on grounds of
humanity. But the circumstances under which he had shot this
strange girl, the shock and realization, the waiting for death,
the hope, had resulted in a condition of mind wherein Venters
wanted her to live more than he had ever wanted anything. Yet he
could not tell why. He believed the killing of the rustler and
the subsequent excitement had disturbed him. For how else could
he explain the throbbing of his brain, the heat of his blood, the
undefined sense of full hours, charged, vibrant with pulsating
mystery where once they had dragged in loneliness?
"I shot you," he said, slowly, "and I want you to get well so I
Riders of the Purple Sage |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Across The Plains by Robert Louis Stevenson: ado, and went off staggering along the track towards Cromwell
followed by a peal of laughter from the cars. They were speaking
English all about me, but I knew I was in a foreign land.
Twenty minutes before nine that night, we were deposited at the
Pacific Transfer Station near Council Bluffs, on the eastern bank
of the Missouri river. Here we were to stay the night at a kind of
caravanserai, set apart for emigrants. But I gave way to a thirst
for luxury, separated myself from my companions, and marched with
my effects into the Union Pacific Hotel. A white clerk and a
coloured gentleman whom, in my plain European way, I should call
the boots, were installed behind a counter like bank tellers. They
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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 Catherine de Medici by Honore de Balzac: of sharing the world with Suleiman, did not at first feel the blow at
his head; but no sooner had Cardinal Granvelle made him aware of the
extent of the wound than he abdicated. The Guises had but one scheme,
--that of annihilating heresy at a single blow. This blow they were
now to attempt, for the first time, to strike at Amboise; failing
there they tried it again, twelve years later, at the Saint-
Bartholomew,--on the latter occasion in conjunction with Catherine de'
Medici, enlightened by that time by the flames of a twelve years' war,
enlightened above all by the significant word "republic," uttered
later and printed by the writers of the Reformation, but already
foreseen (as we have said before) by Lecamus, that type of the
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