| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Old Indian Legends by Zitkala-Sa: together and lifted the bundle of wood upon his back, but alas! he
had unconsciously dropped the end of the rope and now he was lost
in the wood!
"Hin! hin!" he groaned. Then pausing a moment, he set his
fan-like ears to catch any sound of approaching footsteps. There
was none. Not even a night bird twittered to help him out of his
predicament.
With a bold face, he made a start at random.
He fell into some tangled wood where he was held fast.
Manstin let go his bundle and began to lament having given away
his two eyes.
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from 'Twixt Land & Sea by Joseph Conrad: own - I asked myself. But there was nobody suitable within the
Seven Isles group, as far as I knew. It flashed upon me that it
was myself she had been lying in wait for.
She hesitated, muffled from head to foot, shadowy and bashful. I
advanced another pace, and how I felt is nobody's business.
"What is it?" I asked, very low.
"Nobody knows I am here," she whispered.
"And nobody can see us," I whispered back.
The murmur of words "I've been so frightened" reached me. Just
then forty feet above our head, from the yet lighted verandah,
unexpected and startling, Freya's voice rang out in a clear,
'Twixt Land & Sea |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Lesson of the Master by Henry James: him a long time to finish his book, for the subject was as
difficult as it was fine, and he was literally embarrassed by the
fulness of his notes. Something within him warned him that he must
make it supremely good - otherwise he should lack, as regards his
private behaviour, a handsome excuse. He had a horror of this
deficiency and found himself as firm as need be on the question of
the lamp and the file. He crossed the Alps at last and spent the
winter, the spring, the ensuing summer, in Italy, where still, at
the end of a twelvemonth, his task was unachieved. "Stick to it -
see it through": this general injunction of St. George's was good
also for the particular case. He applied it to the utmost, with
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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 Roads of Destiny by O. Henry: days. He wanted to give a dinner at his old home to a few friends.
That was all.
"Take it for a week--a month, if you will," said the solicitor; "but
do not speak to me of rental." With a sigh he concluded: "The dinners
I have eaten under that roof, /mon fils/!"
There came to many of the old, established dealers in furniture,
china, silverware, decorations and household fittings at their stores
on Canal, Chartres, St. Charles, and Royal Streets, a quiet young man
with a little bald spot on the top of his head, distinguished manners,
and the eye of a /connoisseur/, who explained what he wanted. To hire
the complete and elegant equipment of a dining-room, hall, reception-
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