| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Inaugural Address by John F. Kennedy: in our lifetime on this planet. But let us begin.
In your hands, my fellow citizens. . .more than mine. . .will rest the
final success or failure of our course. Since this country was founded,
each generation of Americans has been summoned to give testimony
to its national loyalty. The graves of young Americans who answered
the call to service surround the globe. Now the trumpet summons us again. . .
not as a call to bear arms, though arms we need. . .not as a call to battle. . .
though embattled we are. . .but a call to bear the burden of a long
twilight struggle. . .year in and year out, rejoicing in hope,
patient in tribulation. . .a struggle against the common enemies of man:
tyranny. . .poverty. . .disease. . .and war itself. Can we forge against
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Charmides and Other Poems by Oscar Wilde: Flutter as birds adown the wold,
I may have run the glorious race,
And caught the torch while yet aflame,
And called upon the holy name
Of Him who now doth hide His face.
ARONA
HUMANITAD
It is full winter now: the trees are bare,
Save where the cattle huddle from the cold
Beneath the pine, for it doth never wear
The autumn's gaudy livery whose gold
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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 Fall of the House of Usher by Edgar Allan Poe: as his best, and indeed his only personal friend, with a view of
attempting, by the cheerfulness of my society, some alleviation
of his malady. It was the manner in which all this, and much
more, was said--it was the apparent heart that went with his
request--which allowed me no room for hesitation; and I
accordingly obeyed forthwith what I still considered a very
singular summons.
Although, as boys, we had been even intimate associates, yet
I really knew little of my friend. His reserve had been always
excessive and habitual. I was aware, however, that his very
ancient family had been noted, time out of mind, for a peculiar
The Fall of the House of Usher |
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 The Street of Seven Stars by Mary Roberts Rinehart: after all that, to have Peter discover he had gone without his
hat and toss it down to him a flight below.
All the frankness had gone out of the relationship between
Harmony and Peter. They made painful efforts at ease, talked
during the meal of careful abstractions, such as Jimmy, and
Peter's proposed trip to Semmering, avoided each other's eyes,
ate little or nothing. Once when Harmony passed Peter his
coffee-cup their fingers touched, and between them they dropped
the cup. Harmony was flushed and pallid by turns, Peter wretched
and silent.
Out of the darkness came one ray of light. Stewart had wired from
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