| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Jerusalem Delivered by Torquato Tasso: His vanity with grave advice reproved
And told what mourning Christian knights behoved:
LXXXVI
"O Tancred, Tancred, how far different
From thy beginnings good these follies be?
What makes thee deaf? what hath thy eyesight blent?
What mist, what cloud thus overshadeth thee?
This is a warning good from heaven down sent,
Yet His advice thou canst not hear nor see
Who calleth and conducts thee to the way
From which thou willing dost and witting stray:
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from In a German Pension by Katherine Mansfield: been to Munchen. All the Exhibitions, all the Art and Soul life of Germany
are in Munchen. There is the Wagner Festival in August, and Mozart and a
Japanese collection of pictures--and there is the beer! You do not know
what good beer is until you have been to Munchen. Why, I see fine ladies
every afternoon, but fine ladies, I tell you, drinking glasses so high."
He measured a good washstand pitcher in height, and I smiled.
"If I drink a great deal of Munchen beer I sweat so," said Herr Hoffmann.
"When I am here, in the fields or before my baths, I sweat, but I enjoy it;
but in the town it is not at all the same thing."
Prompted by the thought, he wiped his neck and face with his dinner napkin
and carefully cleaned his ears.
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