| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Critias by Plato: by just apportionment obtained what they wanted, and peopled their own
districts; and when they had peopled them they tended us, their nurselings
and possessions, as shepherds tend their flocks, excepting only that they
did not use blows or bodily force, as shepherds do, but governed us like
pilots from the stern of the vessel, which is an easy way of guiding
animals, holding our souls by the rudder of persuasion according to their
own pleasure;--thus did they guide all mortal creatures. Now different
gods had their allotments in different places which they set in order.
Hephaestus and Athene, who were brother and sister, and sprang from the
same father, having a common nature, and being united also in the love of
philosophy and art, both obtained as their common portion this land, which
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Somebody's Little Girl by Martha Young: the little blue-checked-apron girls playing in the sand; and Sister
Ignatius, who cooked the cakes with the caraway seeds in them; and
Sister Theckla, who taught the little girls to Count and to Sing.
Why, the whole world, surely the up-on-the mountain-world, seemed
full of Only-Just-Ladies.
Not just a Lady here and there, coming to visit with hats on, to
talk a little to the Sisters, to look at the little girls with blue
checked aprons on. But here they were coming and going all the
time, moving about, and living in the cabins, walking everywhere
with or without hats on, standing on the gray cliffs, and looking
down--maybe into the heart of a worldwide violet there, off the edge
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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 The Children of the Night by Edwin Arlington Robinson: But now it is the man that is the song.
We do not hear him very much to-day:
His piercing and eternal cadence rings
Too pure for us -- too powerfully pure,
Too lovingly triumphant, and too large;
But there are some that hear him, and they know
That he shall sing to-morrow for all men,
And that all time shall listen.
The master-songs are ended? Rather say
No songs are ended that are ever sung,
And that no names are dead names. When we write
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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 The Red Inn by Honore de Balzac: Many's the time I've played there!"
"Monsieur Wahlenfer, haven't you also your 'hoc erat in votis'?" asked
Wilhelm.
"Yes, monsieur, but it came to pass, and now--"
The good man was silent, and did not finish his sentence.
"As for me," said the landlord, whose face was rather flushed, "I
bought a field last spring, which I had been wanting for ten years."
They talked thus like men whose tongues are loosened by wine, and they
each took that friendly liking to the others of which we are never
stingy on a journey; so that when the time came to separate for the
night, Wilhelm offered his bed to the merchant.
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