| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Virginibus Puerisque by Robert Louis Stevenson: landscape has been changed for him, as though the sun had just
broken forth, or a great artist had only then completed, by
some cunning touch, the composition of the picture? And not
only a change of posture - a snatch of perfume, the sudden
singing of a bird, the freshness of some pulse of air from an
invisible sea, the light shadow of a travelling cloud, the
merest nothing that sends a little shiver along the most
infinitesimal nerve of a man's body - not one of the least of
these but has a hand somehow in the general effect, and brings
some refinement of its own into the character of the pleasure
we feel.
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Ann Veronica by H. G. Wells: Bond of Freedom" in neat black letters. She opened one and found
herself in a large untidy room set with chairs that were a little
disarranged as if by an overnight meeting. On the walls were
notice-boards bearing clusters of newspaper slips, three or four
big posters of monster meetings, one of which Ann Veronica had
attended with Miss Miniver, and a series of announcements in
purple copying-ink, and in one corner was a pile of banners.
There was no one at all in this room, but through the half-open
door of one of the small apartments that gave upon it she had a
glimpse of two very young girls sitting at a littered table and
writing briskly.
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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 White Moll by Frank L. Packard: The bent old figure still hesitated, and then, with the despairing
cry again, grasped at the top of the table, and jerked it toward
him. The surface seemed to slide sideways a little way, a matter
of two or three inches, and then stick there; but the Adventurer,
in an instant, had thrust the fingers of his left hand into the
crevice. He drew out a number of loose banknotes, and thrust
his fingers in again for a further supply.
"Open it wider!" he commanded curtly.
"I - I'm trying to," the other mumbled, and bent down to peer under
the table. "It's stuck. The catch is underneath, and -"
It seemed to Rhoda Gray, gazing into that dimly lighted room, as
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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 Unconscious Comedians by Honore de Balzac: corresponding outlays. The strongest heads are liable to crack there,
as if to give vent to their steam. Those who make much money have
vices or fancies,--no doubt to establish an equilibrium."
"And now that the lottery is abolished?" asked Gazonal.
"Oh! now she has a nephew for whom she is hoarding."
When they reached the Vieille rue du Temple the three friends entered
one of the oldest houses in that street and passed up a shaking
staircase, the steps of which, caked with mud, led them in semi-
darkness, and through a stench peculiar to houses on an alley, to the
third story, where they beheld a door which painting alone could
render; literature would have to spend too many nights in suitably
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