The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Charmides and Other Poems by Oscar Wilde: And others bade the halcyon sing her softest lullaby.
And when he neared his old Athenian home,
A mighty billow rose up suddenly
Upon whose oily back the clotted foam
Lay diapered in some strange fantasy,
And clasping him unto its glassy breast
Swept landward, like a white-maned steed upon a venturous quest!
Now where Colonos leans unto the sea
There lies a long and level stretch of lawn;
The rabbit knows it, and the mountain bee
For it deserts Hymettus, and the Faun
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Child of Storm by H. Rider Haggard: camp and burned up nearly everything--the meat, the skins, and even the
ivory, which it cracked so that it is useless. That was an unlucky
hunt, for although it began so well, we have come out of it quite naked;
yes, with nothing at all except the head of the bull with the cleft
horn, that I thought you might like to keep."
"Well, Umbezi, let us be thankful that we have come out with our
lives--that is, if I am going to live," I added.
"Oh, Macumazahn, you will live without doubt, and be none the worse.
Two of our doctors--very clever men--have looked at you and said so.
One of them tied you up in all those skins, and I promised him a heifer
for the business, if he cured you, and gave him a goat on account. But
 Child of Storm |