| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Helen of Troy And Other Poems by Sara Teasdale: Thy strings no rest from weariless wild hands.
To Erinna
Was Time not harsh to you, or was he kind,
O pale Erinna of the perfect lyre,
That he has left no word of singing fire
Whereby you waked the dreaming Lesbian wind,
And kindled night along the lyric shore?
O girl whose lips Erato stooped to kiss,
Do you go sorrowing because of this
In fields where poets sing forevermore?
Or are you glad and is it best to be
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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 Touchstone by Edith Wharton: earlier his boredom had been perversely tinged by a sense of
resentment at the thought that, as things were going, he might in
time have to surrender even the despised privilege of boring
himself within those particular four walls. It was not that he
cared much for the club, but that the remote contingency of having
to give it up stood to him, just then, perhaps by very reason of
its insignificance and remoteness, for the symbol of his
increasing abnegations; of that perpetual paring-off that was
gradually reducing existence to the naked business of keeping
himself alive. It was the futility of his multiplied shifts and
privations that made them seem unworthy of a high attitude; the
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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 A Sentimental Journey by Laurence Sterne: servant came into the room with a billet, in which she said she had
taken the liberty to charge me with a letter, which I was to
present myself to Madame R- the first morning I had nothing to do
at Paris. There was only added, she was sorry, but from what
PENCHANT she had not considered, that she had been prevented
telling me her story, - that she still owed it to me; and if my
route should ever lay through Brussels, and I had not by then
forgot the name of Madame de L-, - that Madame de L- would be glad
to discharge her obligation.
Then I will meet thee, said I, fair spirit! at Brussels; - 'tis
only returning from Italy through Germany to Holland, by the route
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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 Jolly Corner by Henry James: SOUS, whether it WERE possible. If I had waited I might have seen
it was, and then I might have been, by staying here, something
nearer to one of these types who have been hammered so hard and
made so keen by their conditions. It isn't that I admire them so
much - the question of any charm in them, or of any charm, beyond
that of the rank money-passion, exerted by their conditions FOR
them, has nothing to do with the matter: it's only a question of
what fantastic, yet perfectly possible, development of my own
nature I mayn't have missed. It comes over me that I had then a
strange ALTER EGO deep down somewhere within me, as the full-blown
flower is in the small tight bud, and that I just took the course,
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