| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Love Songs by Sara Teasdale: This is the spot where I will lie
When life has had enough of me,
These are the grasses that will blow
Above me like a living sea.
These gay old lilies will not shrink
To draw their life from death of mine,
And I will give my body's fire
To make blue flowers on this vine.
"O Soul," I said, "have you no tears?
Was not the body dear to you?"
I heard my soul say carelessly,
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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 Taras Bulba and Other Tales by Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol: and so forth. Three catastrophes which occurred afterwards, three
sudden deaths of wife, daughter, and infant son, he regarded as a
divine punishment on him, and firmly resolved to withdraw from the
world.
"As soon as I was nine years old, he placed me in an academy of
painting, and, paying all his debts, retired to a lonely cloister,
where he soon afterwards took the vows. There he amazed every one by
the strictness of his life, and his untiring observance of all the
monastic rules. The prior of the monastery, hearing of his skill in
painting, ordered him to paint the principal picture in the church.
But the humble brother said plainly that he was unworthy to touch a
Taras Bulba and Other Tales |
