| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Madam How and Lady Why by Charles Kingsley: greater part of London and the county of Middlesex be drowned in
salt water.
How dreadful that would be!
Dreadful indeed. God grant that it may never happen. More
terrible changes of land and water have happened, and are
happening still in the world: but none, I think, could happen
which would destroy so much civilisation and be such a loss to
mankind, as that the Thames valley should become again what it
was, geologically speaking, only the other day, when these gravel
banks, over which we are running to Reading, were being washed out
of the chalk cliffs up above at every tide, and rolled on a beach,
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from My Bondage and My Freedom by Frederick Douglass: Horses and hounds are not the only consumers of the slave's toil.
There was practiced, at the Lloyd's, a hospitality which would
have <86>astonished and charmed any health-seeking northern
divine or merchant, who might have chanced to share it. Viewed
from his own table, and _not_ from the field, the colonel was a
model of generous hospitality. His house was, literally, a
hotel, for weeks during the summer months. At these times,
especially, the air was freighted with the rich fumes of baking,
boiling, roasting and broiling. The odors I shared with the
winds; but the meats were under a more stringent monopoly except
that, occasionally, I got a cake from Mas' Daniel. In Mas'
My Bondage and My Freedom |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Secret Places of the Heart by H. G. Wells: of the Carbuncle seems to have got rather a hold upon him.
She has kept him in order for three or four years."
The doctor scrutinized his own remarks with a judicious
expression.
"I am not being fair. He ruffled me. Even if it is true, as I
said, that every third manufacturer from the midlands is in
much the same case as he is, that does not dismiss the case.
It makes it a more important one, much more important: it
makes it a type case with the exceptional quality of being
self-expressive. Almost too selfexpressive.
"Sir Richmond does, after all, make out a sort of case for
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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 Little Rivers by Henry van Dyke: a while longer to endure, and (if it may be) help us to do better.
Bless to us our extraordinary mercies; if the day come when these
must be taken, have us play the man under affliction. Be with our
friends, be with ourselves. Go with each of us to rest; if any
awake, temper to them the dark hours of watching; and when the day
returns to us--our sun and comforter--call us with morning faces,
eager to labour, eager to be happy, if happiness shall be our
portion, and, if the day be marked to sorrow, strong to endure it.
We thank thee and praise thee; and, in the words of Him to whom
this day is sacred, close our oblation."
The man who made that kindly human prayer knew the meaning of white
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