| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell: "Yes, you are. In another moment you'll be in a swoon and I have
no smelling salts about me."
She stamped her foot impotently because she could not think of
anything else to do--and without a word picked up the lamp and
started up the stairs. He was close behind her and she could hear
him laughing softly to himself. That sound stiffened her spine.
She went into Wade's nursery and found him sitting clutched in
Prissy's arms, half dressed, hiccoughing quietly. Prissy was
whimpering. The feather tick on Wade's bed was small and she
ordered Prissy to drag it down the stairs and into the wagon.
Prissy put down the child and obeyed. Wade followed her down the
 Gone With the Wind |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Recruit by Honore de Balzac: increased by cupidity, and his cause was backed by enormous power, the
power of life and death throughout the district. This man, still
young, showed so much apparent nobleness and generosity in his
proceedings that Madame de Dey had not yet been able to judge him.
But, disregarding the danger that attends all attempts at subtilty
with Normans, she employed the inventive wit and slyness which Nature
grants to women in opposing the four rivals one against the other. By
thus gaining time, she hoped to come safe and sound to the end of the
national troubles. At this period, the royalists in the interior of
France expected day by day that the Revolution would be ended on the
morrow. This conviction was the ruin of very many of them.
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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 A Voyage to Arcturus by David Lindsay: immediately set foot on the bottom step of the spiral staircase and
ran nimbly up, bearing the lantern. Maskull followed him with some
trepidation, in view of his previous painful experience on these
stairs, but when, after the first half - dozen steps, he discovered
that he was still breathing freely, his dread changed to relief and
astonishment, and he could have chattered like a girl.
At the lowest window Krag went straight ahead without stepping, but
Maskull clambered into the embrasure, in order to renew his
acquaintance with the miraculous spectacle of the Arcturian group.
The lens had lost its magic property. It had become a common sheet
of glass, through which the ordinary sky field appeared.
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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 Collected Articles by Frederick Douglass: course while there was such a restriction, was it abandoned.
Becoming satisfied that I could not rely on my trade in New
Bedford to give me a living, I prepared myself to do any kind of
work that came to hand. I sawed wood, shoveled coal, dug cellars,
moved rubbish from back yards, worked on the wharves, loaded and
unloaded vessels, and scoured their cabins.
I afterward got steady work at the brass-foundry owned by Mr. Richmond.
My duty here was to blow the bellows, swing the crane, and empty the flasks
in which castings were made; and at times this was hot and heavy work.
The articles produced here were mostly for ship work, and in the busy season
the foundry was in operation night and day. I have often worked two nights
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