| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Vailima Prayers & Sabbath Morn by Robert Louis Stevenson: that, our maker, the dispenser of events - Thou, of the vast
designs, in which we blindly labour, suffer us to be so far
constant to ourselves and our beloved.
FOR FRIENDS
FOR our absent loved ones we implore thy loving-kindness. Keep
them in life, keep them in growing honour; and for us, grant that
we remain worthy of their love. For Christ's sake, let not our
beloved blush for us, nor we for them. Grant us but that, and
grant us courage to endure lesser ills unshaken, and to accept
death, loss, and disappointment as it were straws upon the tide of
life.
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from An Ideal Husband by Oscar Wilde: its hands at my throat. I could have killed it for ever, sent it
back into its tomb, destroyed its record, burned the one witness
against me. You prevented me. No one but you, you know it. And now
what is there before me but public disgrace, ruin, terrible shame,
the mockery of the world, a lonely dishonoured life, a lonely
dishonoured death, it may be, some day? Let women make no more
ideals of men! let them not put them on alters and bow before them,
or they may ruin other lives as completely as you - you whom I have
so wildly loved - have ruined mine!
[He passes from the room. LADY CHILTERN rushes towards him, but the
door is closed when she reaches it. Pale with anguish, bewildered,
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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 Westward Ho! by Charles Kingsley: "Well, your holiness," said the colonel, "there may have been
devilry in it; how else would men have dared to run right into the
mouths of our cannon, fire their shot against our very noses, and
tumble harmless over those huge butts of earth?"
"Doubtless by force of the fiends which raged with them,"
interposed the bishop.
"And then, with their blasphemous cries, leap upon us with sword
and pike? I myself saw that Lieutenant-General Carlisle hew down
with one stroke that noble young gentleman the ensign-bearer, your
excellency's sister's son's nephew, though he was armed cap-a-pie.
Was not art-magic here? And that most furious and blaspheming
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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 Faraday as a Discoverer by John Tyndall: Faraday's currents that speed from place to place through these
wires. Approaching the point of Dungeness, the mariner sees an
unusually brilliant light, and from the noble phares of La Heve the
same light flashes across the sea. These are Faraday's sparks
exalted by suitable machinery to sunlike splendour. At the present
moment the Board of Trade and the Brethren of the Trinity House, as
well as the Commissioners of Northern Lights, are contemplating the
introduction of the Magneto-electric Light at numerous points upon
our coasts; and future generations will be able to refer to those
guiding stars in answer to the question. What has been the practical
use of the labours of Faraday? But I would again emphatically say,
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