The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Return of the Native by Thomas Hardy: creatures who lived around her home. All similes and
allegories concerning her began and ended with birds.
There was as much variety in her motions as in their flight.
When she was musing she was a kestrel, which hangs
in the air by an invisible motion of its wings.
When she was in a high wind her light body was blown
against trees and banks like a heron's. When she was
frightened she darted noiselessly like a kingfisher.
When she was serene she skimmed like a swallow, and that is
how she was moving now.
"You are looking very blithe, upon my word, Tamsie,"
 Return of the Native |
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 Sesame and Lilies by John Ruskin: Thus, then, you have first to mould her physical frame, and then, as
the strength she gains will permit you, to fill and temper her mind
with all knowledge and thoughts which tend to confirm its natural
instincts of justice, and refine its natural tact of love.
All such knowledge should be given her as may enable her to
understand, and even to aid, the work of men: and yet it should be
given, not as knowledge,--not as if it were, or could be, for her an
object to know; but only to feel, and to judge. It is of no moment,
as a matter of pride or perfectness in herself, whether she knows
many languages or one; but it is of the utmost, that she should be
able to show kindness to a stranger, and to understand the sweetness
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