| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Altar of the Dead by Henry James: had had of old but too little to say to the matter: for the girl
who was to have been his bride there had been no bridal embrace.
She had died of a malignant fever after the wedding-day had been
fixed, and he had lost before fairly tasting it an affection that
promised to fill his life to the brim.
Of that benediction, however, it would have been false to say this
life could really be emptied: it was still ruled by a pale ghost,
still ordered by a sovereign presence. He had not been a man of
numerous passions, and even in all these years no sense had grown
stronger with him than the sense of being bereft. He had needed no
priest and no altar to make him for ever widowed. He had done many
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Lay Morals by Robert Louis Stevenson: spirited, he should yet preach so dry, when coming over a
knowe, whom should he see but Janet, sitting with her back to
him, minding her cattle! He was always a great child for
secret, stealthy ways, having been employed by his mother on
errands when the same was necessary; and he came behind the
lass without her hearing.
'Jennet,' says he.
'Keep me,' cries Janet, springing up. 'O, it's you, Maister
Francie! Save us, what a fricht ye gied me.'
'Ay, it's me,' said Francie. 'I've been thinking, Jennet; I
saw you and the curate a while back - '
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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 Flame and Shadow by Sara Teasdale: Was like my first look at the sea.
We have been together
Four Aprils now
Watching for the green
On the swaying willow bough;
Yet whenever I turn
To your gray eyes over me,
It is as though I looked
For the first time at the sea.
The Net
I made you many and many a song,
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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 Symposium by Plato: of Heracleitus, whose conception of the harmony of opposites he explains in
a new way as the harmony after discord; to his common sense, as to that of
many moderns as well as ancients, the identity of contradictories is an
absurdity. His notion of love may be summed up as the harmony of man with
himself in soul as well as body, and of all things in heaven and earth with
one another.
Aristophanes is ready to laugh and make laugh before he opens his mouth,
just as Socrates, true to his character, is ready to argue before he begins
to speak. He expresses the very genius of the old comedy, its coarse and
forcible imagery, and the licence of its language in speaking about the
gods. He has no sophistical notions about love, which is brought back by
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