The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Poems by T. S. Eliot: I feel immeasurably at peace, and find the world
To be wonderful and youthful, after all."
The voice returns like the insistent out-of-tune
Of a broken violin on an August afternoon:
"I am always sure that you understand
My feelings, always sure that you feel,
Sure that across the gulf you reach your hand.
You are invulnerable, you have no Achilles' heel.
You will go on, and when you have prevailed
You can say: at this point many a one has failed.
But what have I, but what have I, my friend,
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Fairy Tales by Hans Christian Andersen: prepared for him, did not so soon take their leave.
But you must not think that the affair is over now; it grows much worse.
The night passed, the next day also; but nobody came to fetch the Shoes.
In the evening "Dramatic Readings" were to be given at the little theatre in
King Street. The house was filled to suffocation; and among other pieces to be
recited was a new poem by H. C. Andersen, called, My Aunt's Spectacles; the
contents of which were pretty nearly as follows:
"A certain person had an aunt, who boasted of particular skill in
fortune-telling with cards, and who was constantly being stormed by persons
that wanted to have a peep into futurity. But she was full of mystery about
her art, in which a certain pair of magic spectacles did her essential
 Fairy Tales |