| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Reign of King Edward the Third by William Shakespeare: [Enter King John of France, his two sons, Charles of
Normandy, and Phillip, and the Duke of Lorrain.]
KING JOHN.
Here, till our Navy of a thousand sail
Have made a breakfast to our foe by Sea,
Let us encamp, to wait their happy speed.--
Lorraine, what readiness is Edward in?
How hast thou heard that he provided is
Of marshall furniture for this exploit?
LORRAINE.
To lay aside unnecessary soothing,
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from An Old Maid by Honore de Balzac: was to the mind and heart of the chevalier when you learn that his
intercourse with the Princess Goritza became less frequent.
One day he appeared in Mademoiselle Armande's salon with the calf of
his leg on the shin-bone. This bankruptcy of the graces was, I do
assure you, terrible, and struck all Alencon with horror. The late
young man had become an old one; this human being, who, by the
breaking-down of his spirit, had passed at once from fifty to ninety
years of age, frightened society. Besides, his secret was betrayed; he
had waited and watched for Mademoiselle Cormon; he had, like a patient
hunter, adjusted his aim for ten whole years, and finally had missed
the game! In short, the impotent Republic had won the day from Valiant
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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 Vailima Prayers & Sabbath Morn by Robert Louis Stevenson: us of our course without dishonour to ourselves or hurt to others,
and, when the day comes, may die in peace. Deliver us from fear
and favour: from mean hopes and cheap pleasures. Have mercy on
each in his deficiency; let him be not cast down; support the
stumbling on the way, and give at last rest to the weary.
AT MORNING
THE day returns and brings us the petty round of irritating
concerns and duties. Help us to play the man, help us to perform
them with laughter and kind faces, let cheerfulness abound with
industry. Give us to go blithely on our business all this day,
bring us to our resting beds weary and content and undishonoured,
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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 Woman and Labour by Olive Schreiner: regard as almost axiomatic, that, the women of no race or class will ever
rise in revolt or attempt to bring about a revolutionary readjustment of
their relation to their society, however intense their suffering and
however clear their perception of it, while the welfare and persistence of
their society requires their submission: that, wherever there is a general
attempt on the part of the women of any society to readjust their position
in it, a close analysis will always show that the changed or changing
conditions of that society have made woman's acquiescence no longer
necessary or desirable.
Another point which it was attempted to deal with in this division of the
book was the probability, amounting almost to a certainty, that woman's
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