| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The House of Dust by Conrad Aiken: Down long broad flights of lamplit stairs we flow;
Noisy, in scattered waves, crowding and shouting;
In broken slow cascades.
The gardens extend before us . . . We spread out swiftly;
Trees are above us, and darkness. The canyon fades . . .
And we recall, with a gleaming stab of sadness,
Vaguely and incoherently, some dream
Of a world we came from, a world of sun-blue hills . . .
A black wood whispers around us, green eyes gleam;
Someone cries in the forest, and someone kills.
We flow to the east, to the white-lined shivering sea;
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Poems by Oscar Wilde: argent lily from the sea.
I have made my choice, have lived my poems,
and, though youth is gone in wasted days,
I have found the lover's crown of myrtle better
than the poet's crown of bays.
Poem: From Spring Days To Winter (For Music)
In the glad springtime when leaves were green,
O merrily the throstle sings!
I sought, amid the tangled sheen,
Love whom mine eyes had never seen,
O the glad dove has golden wings!
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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 Tono Bungay by H. G. Wells: lasted for ever. Moods and states come and go. To-day my light
is out..."
To this day I cannot determine whether she said or whether I
imagined she said "chloral." Perhaps a half-conscious diagnosis
flashed it on my brain. Perhaps I am the victim of some perverse
imaginative freak of memory, some hinted possibility that
scratched and seared. There the word stands in my memory, as if
it were written in fire.
We came to the door of Lady Osprey's garden at last, and it was
beginning to drizzle.
She held out her hands and I took them.
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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 War in the Air by H. G. Wells: destruction of the Post-Office, and a little army of volunteers
with white badges entered behind the firemen, bringing out the
often still living bodies, for the most part frightfully charred,
and carrying them into the big Monson building close at hand.
Everywhere the busy firemen were directing their bright streams
of water upon the smouldering masses: their hose lay about the
square, and long cordons of police held back the gathering lack
masses of people, chiefly from the east side, from these central
activities.
In violent and extraordinary contrast with this scene of
destruction, close at hand were the huge newspaper establishments
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