| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Flower Fables by Louisa May Alcott: with sorrow gave consent, and Ripple joyfully prepared to go. She,
with her sister Spirits, built up a tomb of delicate, bright-colored
shells, wherein the child might lie, till she should come to wake him
into life; then, praying them to watch most faithfully above it,
she said farewell, and floated bravely forth, on her long, unknown
journey, far away.
"I will search the broad earth till I find a path up to the sun,
or some kind friend who will carry me; for, alas! I have no wings,
and cannot glide through the blue air as through the sea," said Ripple
to herself, as she went dancing over the waves, which bore her swiftly
onward towards a distant shore.
Flower Fables |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Crisis in Russia by Arthur Ransome: have built the station in the Ryezan Government, on the
Shadul peat mosses, about 110 versts from Moscow.
Before the end of May that station should be actually at
work. (It was completed, opened and partially destroyed by
a gigantic fire.) Another station at Kashira in the Tula
Government (on the Oka), using the small coal produced
in the Moscow coalfields, will be at work before the autumn.
This year similar stations are being built at
Ivano-Voznesensk and at Nijni-Novgorod. Also, with a
view to making the most economic use of what we already
possess, we have finished both in Petrograd and in Moscow
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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 Breaking Point by Mary Roberts Rinehart: He sat back in his deep chair, and looked up at the stockings,
ludicrously bulging. After all, if he believed that He gave and
took away, then he must believe that Jim was where he had tried to
think him, filling a joyous, active place in some boyish heaven.
After a while he got up and went to his desk, and getting pen and
paper wrote carefully.
"Dearest: You will find this in your stocking in the morning, when
you get up for the early service. And I want you to think over it
in the church. It is filled with tenderness and with anxiety.
Life is not so very long, little daughter, and it has no time to
waste in anger or in bitterness. A little work, a little sleep, a
The Breaking Point |
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 Helen of Troy And Other Poems by Sara Teasdale: Is blue with twilight; but I shall not see.
I shall have gone forever. Hold my hands,
Hold fast that Death may never come between;
Swear by the gods you will not let me go;
Make songs for Death as you would sing to Love --
But you will not assuage him. He alone
Of all the gods will take no gifts from men.
I am afraid, afraid.
Sappho, lean down.
Last night the fever gave a dream to me,
It takes my life and gives a little dream.
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