| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from A Straight Deal by Owen Wister: by Reginald of Waterford. Roderick O'Connor, King of Connaught, joined
them in 1175. All these accepted Henry the Second of England as their
Lord and King, swearing to be loyal to him and his successors forever.
Such was England's brutal and unjustifiable conquest of Ireland.
Ireland was not a nation, it was a tribal chaos. The Irish nation of that
day is a legend, a myth, built by poetic imagination. During the cen-
turies succeeding Henry the Second, were many eras of violence and
bloodshed. In reading the story, it is hard to say which side committed
the most crimes. During those same centuries, violence and bloodshed and
oppression existed everywhere in Europe. Undoubtedly England was very
oppressive to Ireland at times; but since the days of Gladstone she has
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Amy Foster by Joseph Conrad: ent; there were no images of the Redeemer by the
roadside. The very grass was different, and the
trees. All the trees but the three old Norway pines
on the bit of lawn before Swaffer's house, and
these reminded him of his country. He had been
detected once, after dusk, with his forehead against
the trunk of one of them, sobbing, and talking to
himself. They had been like brothers to him at that
time, he affirmed. Everything else was strange.
Conceive you the kind of an existence overshad-
owed, oppressed, by the everyday material appear-
Amy Foster |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Faraday as a Discoverer by John Tyndall: compared with the other three, the effect was most striking.'
It was drawn towards the axis when the magnet was excited, the tube
containing the rarer gas being apparently driven away, and the
greater the difference between the densities of the two gases,
the greater was the energy of this action.
And now observe his mode of reaching a material magnetic zero.
When a bubble of nitrogen was exposed in air in the magnetic field,
on the supervention of the power, the bubble retreated from the magnet.
A less acute observer would have set nitrogen down as diamagnetic;
but Faraday knew that retreat, in a medium composed in part of oxygen,
might be due to the attraction of the latter gas, instead of to 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 Story of an African Farm by Olive Schreiner: a kapje. Next he took the brown dress, and, looking round furtively,
slipped it over his head. He had just got his arms in the sleeves, and was
trying to hook up the back, when an increase in the patter of the rain at
the window made him drag it off hastily. When he perceived there was no
one coming he tumbled the things back into the box, and, covering it
carefully, went down the ladder.
Em was still at her work, trying to adjust a new needle in the machine.
Gregory drank his soup, and then sat before her, an awful and mysterious
look in his eyes.
"I am going to town tomorrow," he said.
"I'm almost afraid you won't be able to go," said Em, who was intent on her
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