| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Touchstone by Edith Wharton: action. He had brought some papers from his office and he spread
them out on his table and squared himself to the task. . . .
It must have been an hour later that he found himself
automatically fitting a key into a locked drawer. He had no more
notion than a somnambulist of the mental process that had led up
to this action. He was just dimly aware of having pushed aside
the papers and the heavy calf volumes that a moment before had
bounded his horizon, and of laying in their place, without a trace
of conscious volition, the parcel he had taken from the drawer.
The letters were tied in packets of thirty or forty. There were a
great many packets. On some of the envelopes the ink was fading;
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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 Hellenica by Xenophon: keeping temples rich in votive offerings of gold and silver, and swept
them bare of their sacred treasures; he was an arrant traitor--for
what treason could be more manifest than Euphron's? First he was the
bosom friend of Lacedaemon, but presently chose you in their stead;
and, after exchange of solemn pledges between yourselves and him, once
more turned round and played the traitor to you, and delivered up the
harbour to your enemies. Lastly, he was most undisguisedly a tyrant,
who made not free men only, but free fellow-citizens his slaves; who
put to death, or drove into exile, or robbed of their wealth and
property, not malefactors, note you, but the mere victims of his whim
and fancy; and these were ever the better folk. Once again restored by
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