| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Essays of Travel by Robert Louis Stevenson: low grounds, a flight of rooks goes by; and from time to time the
cooing of wild doves falls upon the ear, not sweet and rich and near
at hand as in England, but a sort of voice of the woods, thin and far
away, as fits these solemn places. Or you hear suddenly the hollow,
eager, violent barking of dogs; scared deer flit past you through the
fringes of the wood; then a man or two running, in green blouse, with
gun and game-bag on a bandoleer; and then, out of the thick of the
trees, comes the jar of rifle-shots. Or perhaps the hounds are out,
and horns are blown, and scarlet-coated huntsmen flash through the
clearings, and the solid noise of horses galloping passes below you,
where you sit perched among the rocks and heather. The boar is
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Poems by Oscar Wilde: Drunk with the trampled vintage of my youth,
I would forget the wearying wasted strife,
The riven veil, the Gorgon eyes of Truth,
The prayerless vigil and the cry for prayer,
The barren gifts, the lifted arms, the dull insensate air!
Sing on! sing on! O feathered Niobe,
Thou canst make sorrow beautiful, and steal
From joy its sweetest music, not as we
Who by dead voiceless silence strive to heal
Our too untented wounds, and do but keep
Pain barricadoed in our hearts, and murder pillowed sleep.
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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 Jerusalem Delivered by Torquato Tasso: Twixt ship and ship, withouten fear or care
Who should her follow, trouble, stop or stay,
And forth to sea made lucky speed and way.
XV
Themselves fornenst old Raffia's town they fand,
A town that first to sailors doth appear
As they from Syria pass to Egypt land:
The sterile coasts of barren Rhinocere
They passed, and seas where Casius hill doth stand
That with his trees o'erspreads the waters near,
Against whose roots breaketh the brackish wave
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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 The Lesson of the Master by Henry James: haven't of course. It's very difficult - that's the devil of the
whole thing, keeping it up. But I see you'll be able to. It will
be a great disgrace if you don't."
"It's very interesting to hear you speak of yourself; but I don't
know what you mean by your allusions to your having fallen off,"
Paul Overt observed with pardonable hypocrisy. He liked his
companion so much now that the fact of any decline of talent or of
care had ceased for the moment to be vivid to him.
"Don't say that - don't say that," St. George returned gravely, his
head resting on the top of the sofa-back and his eyes on the
ceiling. "You know perfectly what I mean. I haven't read twenty
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