| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Chronicles of the Canongate by Walter Scott: known original designation of the gallant 42nd Regiment. Being
the first corps raised for the royal service in the Highlands,
and allowed to retain their national garb, they were thus named
from the contrast which their dark tartans furnished to the
scarlet and white of the other regiments.]
There were some Italian and Flemish pictures of admitted
authenticity, a few genuine bronzes, and other objects of
curiosity, which her brothers or herself had picked up while
abroad. In short, it was a place where the idle were tempted to
become studious, the studious to grow idle where the grave might
find matter to make them gay, and the gay subjects for gravity.
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Garden Party by Katherine Mansfield: thought Isabel hurriedly.
And, laughing, in the new way, she ran down the stairs.
8. THE VOYAGE.
The Picton boat was due to leave at half-past eleven. It was a beautiful
night, mild, starry, only when they got out of the cab and started to walk
down the Old Wharf that jutted out into the harbour, a faint wind blowing
off the water ruffled under Fenella's hat, and she put up her hand to keep
it on. It was dark on the Old Wharf, very dark; the wool sheds, the cattle
trucks, the cranes standing up so high, the little squat railway engine,
all seemed carved out of solid darkness. Here and there on a rounded wood-
pile, that was like the stalk of a huge black mushroom, there hung a
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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 Flame and Shadow by Sara Teasdale: The wrath of the rain!
In the End
All that could never be said,
All that could never be done,
Wait for us at last
Somewhere back of the sun;
All the heart broke to forego
Shall be ours without pain,
We shall take them as lightly as girls
Pluck flowers after rain.
And when they are ours in the end
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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 Blue Flower by Henry van Dyke: into a trough and mixed and beaten and stirred and trampled.
It seemed almost unbearable. But there was consolation in the
thought that something very fine and noble was certainly
coming out of all this trouble. The clay felt sure that, if
it could only wait long enough, a wonderful reward was in
store for it.
Then it was put upon a swiftly turning wheel, and whirled
around until it seemed as if it must fly into a thousand
pieces. A strange power pressed it and moulded it, as it
revolved, and through all the dizziness and pain it felt that
it was taking a new form.
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