| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Early Short Fiction of Edith Wharton by Edith Wharton: Beneath the breast that seems to fall and rise,
And lips that at love's call should answer, "Here!"
First-born of the Renascence, when thy soul
Cast the sweet robing of the flesh aside,
Into these lovelier marble limbs it stole,
Regenerate in art's sunrise clear and wide
As saints who, having kept faith's raiment whole,
Change it above for garments glorified.
THE SONNET.
PURE form, that like some chalice of old time
Contain'st the liquid of the poet's thought
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from A Footnote to History by Robert Louis Stevenson: finished. Leary had gained his point, but Scanlon had lost his
compensation. And it was months later, and this time in the shape
of a threat of bombardment in black and white, that Tamasese heard
the last of the absurd affair. Scanlon had both his fun and his
money, and Leary's practical joke was brought to an artistic end.
Becker sought and missed an instant revenge. Mataafa, a devout
Catholic, was in the habit of walking every morning to mass from
his camp at Vaiala beyond Matautu to the mission at the Mulivai.
He was sometimes escorted by as many as six guards in uniform, who
displayed their proficiency in drill by perpetually shifting arms
as they marched. Himself, meanwhile, paced in front, bareheaded
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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 Divine Comedy (translated by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow) by Dante Alighieri: Of one true city; but thy meaning is,
Who may have lived in Italy a pilgrim."
By way of answer this I seemed to hear
A little farther on than where I stood,
Whereat I made myself still nearer heard.
Among the rest I saw a shade that waited
In aspect, and should any one ask how,
Its chin it lifted upward like a blind man.
"Spirit," I said, "who stoopest to ascend,
If thou art he who did reply to me,
Make thyself known to me by place or name."
The Divine Comedy (translated by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow) |
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 Night and Day by Virginia Woolf: blessings: for the conviction with which the young man spoke; and not
least for the prospect that on her daughter's wedding-day the noble
cadences, the stately periods, the ancient eloquence of the marriage
service would resound over the heads of a distinguished congregation
gathered together near the very spot where her father lay quiescent
with the other poets of England. The tears filled her eyes; but she
remembered simultaneously that her carriage was waiting, and with dim
eyes she walked to the door. Denham followed her downstairs.
It was a strange drive. For Denham it was without exception the most
unpleasant he had ever taken. His only wish was to go as straightly
and quickly as possible to Cheyne Walk; but it soon appeared that Mrs.
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