| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Love Songs by Sara Teasdale: "`Rivers to the Sea' is a book of sheer delight. . . . Her touch
turns everything to song." -- Edward J. Wheeler, in `Current Opinion'.
"Sara Teasdale's lyrics have the clarity, the precision,
the grace and fragrance of flowers." -- Harriet Monroe, in `Poetry'.
"Sara Teasdale has a genius for the song, for the perfect lyric,
in which the words seem to have fallen into place without art or effort."
-- Louis Untermeyer, in `The Chicago Evening Post'.
"`Rivers to the Sea' is the best book of pure lyrics
that has appeared in English since A. E. Housman's `A Shropshire Lad'."
-- William Marion Reedy, in `The Mirror'.
"`Rivers to the Sea' is the most beautiful book of pure lyrics
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Catriona by Robert Louis Stevenson: received caresses: I had thrust her from me with violence; I had
called aloud upon her in the night from the one room to the other; she
had passed hours of wakefulness and weeping; and it is not to be
supposed I had been absent from her pillow thoughts. Upon the back of
this, to be awaked, with unaccustomed formality, under the name of Miss
Drummond, and to be thenceforth used with a great deal of distance and
respect, led her entirely in error on my private sentiments; and she
was indeed so incredibly abused as to imagine me repentant and trying
to draw off!
The trouble betwixt us seems to have been this: that whereas I (since
I had first set eyes on his great hat) thought singly of James More,
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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 The Golden Threshold by Sarojini Naidu: a special scholarship from the Nizam. She remained in England,
with an interval of travel in Italy, till 1898, studying first at
King's College, London, then, till her health again broke down,
at Girton. She returned to Hyderabad in September 1898, and in
the December of that year, to the scandal of all India, broke
through the bonds of caste, and married Dr. Naidu. "Do you know
I have some very beautiful poems floating in the air," she wrote
to me in 1904; "and if the gods are kind I shall cast my soul
like a net and capture them, this year. If the gods are
kind--and grant me a little measure of health. It is all I need
to make my life perfect, for the very 'Spirit of Delight' that
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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 Selected Writings of Guy De Maupassant by Guy De Maupassant: would not come to the farmyard of its own accord, he agreed to
her terms at last:
"Very well, then, that is settled; six francs including
everything, until the corpse is taken out."
"That is settled, six francs."
And he went away, with long strides, to his wheat, which was
lying on the ground under the hot sun which ripens the grain,
while the sick-nurse returned to the house.
She had brought some work with her, for she worked without
stopping by the side of the dead and dying, sometimes for
herself, sometimes for the family, who employed her as seamstress
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