| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Human Drift by Jack London: increasing efficiency of food-production, combined with
colonisation of whole virgin continents, has for generations given
the apparent lie to Malthus' mathematical statement of the Law of
Population, nevertheless the essential significance of his
doctrine remains and cannot be challenged. Population DOES press
against subsistence. And no matter how rapidly subsistence
increases, population is certain to catch up with it.
When man was in the hunting stage of development, wide areas were
necessary for the maintenance of scant populations. With the
shepherd stages, the means of subsistence being increased, a
larger population was supported on the same territory. The
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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: divinity in our gait; and as our temporary godhead lay more
in the way of observing than healing their infirmities, we
were content to pass them by in scorn.
I could not leave my companion, not from regard or even from
interest, but from a very natural feeling, inseparable from
the case. To understand it, let us take a simile. Suppose
yourself walking down the street with a man who continues to
sprinkle the crowd out of a flask of vitriol. You would be
much diverted with the grimaces and contortions of his
victims; and at the same time you would fear to leave his arm
until his bottle was empty, knowing that, when once among the
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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 The Hated Son by Honore de Balzac: climbing plants were twining, and tossing in this month of May their
various blossoms into the very windows of the second floor. Without
being really vast, this garden seemed immense from the manner in which
its vistas were cut; points of view, cleverly contrived through the
rise and fall of the ground, married themselves, as it were, to those
of the valley, where the eye could rove at will. Following the
instincts of her thought, Gabrielle could either enter the solitude of
a narrow space, seeing naught but the thick green and the blue of the
sky above the tree-tops, or she could hover above a glorious prospect,
letting her eyes follow those many-shaded green lines, from the
brilliant colors of the foreground to the pure tones of the horizon on
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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 Juana by Honore de Balzac: blasted by his words, "this woman has the right to despise us. She
saved our life, our fortune, and our honor, and we have saved nothing
for her but her money--Juana!" he cried again, "open, or I will burst
in your door."
His voice, rising in violence, echoed through the garrets in the roof.
He was cold and calm. The life of Montefiore was in his hands; he
would wash away his remorse in the blood of that Italian.
"Out, out, out! out, all of you!" cried the Marana, springing like a
tigress on the dagger, which she wrenched from the hand of the
astonished Perez. "Out, Perez," she continued more calmly, "out, you
and your wife and servants! There will be murder here. You might be
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