| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Manon Lescaut by Abbe Prevost: I to the Luxembourg, whence I sent my father word, that a
gentleman waited there to speak with him. I hardly thought he
would come, as the night was advancing. He, however, soon made
his appearance, followed by a servant: I begged of him to choose
a walk where we could be alone. We walked at least a hundred
paces without speaking. He doubtless imagined that so much
precaution could not be taken without some important object. He
waited for my opening speech, and I was meditating how to
commence it.
At length I began.
"`Sir,' said I, trembling, `you are a good and affectionate
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Woman and Labour by Olive Schreiner: where the present vitality and power of the most ancient of existing
civilisations may be measured accurately by the length of its woman's
shoes; in Turkish harems, where one of the noblest dominant Aryan races the
world has yet produced, is being slowly suffocated in the arms of a
parasite womanhood, and might, indeed, along ago have been obliterated, had
not a certain virility and strength been continually reinfused into it
through the persons of purchased wives, who in early childhood and youth
had been themselves active labouring peasants. Everywhere, in the past as
in the present, the parasitism of the female heralds the decay of a nation
or class, and as invariably indicates disease as the pustules of smallpox
upon the skin indicate the existence of a purulent virus in the system.
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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 Babbitt by Sinclair Lewis: and simultaneously at the same time stay right here in Zenith and be some
blooming kind of a socialist agitator or boss charity-worker or some damn
thing! Lord, and Ted is just as bad! He wants to go to college, and he
doesn't want to go to college. Only one of the three that knows her own mind
is Tinka. Simply can't understand how I ever came to have a pair of
shillyshallying children like Rone and Ted. I may not be any Rockefeller or
James J. Shakespeare, but I certainly do know my own mind, and I do keep right
on plugging along in the office and--Do you know the latest? Far as I can
figure out, Ted's new bee is he'd like to be a movie actor and--And here I've
told him a hundred times, if he'll go to college and law-school and make good,
I'll set him up in business and--Verona just exactly as bad. Doesn't know what
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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 King of the Golden River by John Ruskin: more; and, what was worse, he had so much influence with his
relations, the West Winds in general, and used it so effectually,
that they all adopted a similar line of conduct. So no rain fell
in the valley from one year's end to another. Though everything
remained green and flourishing in the plains below, the inheritance
of the three brothers was a desert. What had once been the richest
soil in the kingdom became a shifting heap of red sand, and the
brothers, unable longer to contend with the adverse skies, abandoned
their valueless patrimony in despair, to seek some means of gaining
a livelihood among the cities and people of the plains. All their
money was gone, and they had nothing left but some curious old-
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