| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Little Rivers by Henry van Dyke: The constant rain of needles and the crumbling of the fallen trees
form a rich, brown mould, into which the foot sinks noiselessly.
Wonderful beds of moss, many feet in thickness, and softer than
feathers, cover the rocks and roots. There are shadows never
broken by the sun, and dark, cool springs of icy water hidden away
in the crevices. You feel a sense of antiquity here which you can
never feel among the maples and birches. Longfellow was right when
he filled his forest primeval with "murmuring pines and hemlocks."
The higher one climbs, the darker and gloomier and more rugged the
vegetation becomes. The pine-trees soon cease to follow you; the
hemlocks disappear, and the balsams can go no farther. Only the
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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 Egmont by Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe: disdains to avert, it is our duty to avenge. Were I to counsel, no guilty
person should live to rejoice in his impunity.
Egmont. Think you that you will be able to reach them all? Do we not
daily hear that fear is driving them to and fro, and forcing them out of the
land? The more wealthy will escape to other countries with their property,
their children, and their friends; while the poor will carry their industrious
hands to our neighbours.
Alva. They will, if they cannot be prevented. It is on this account that the
king desires counsel and aid from every prince, zealous co-operation from
every stadtholder; not merely a description of the present posture of
affairs, or conjectures as to what might take place were events suffered to
 Egmont |