| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Works of Samuel Johnson by Samuel Johnson: different success, produce different judgments: they
who attain their wishes, never want celebrators of
their wisdom and their virtue; and they that
miscarry, are quickly discovered to have been defective
not only in mental but in moral qualities. The world
will never be long without some good reason to hate
the unhappy; their real faults are immediately
detected; and if those are not sufficient to sink them
into infamy, an additional weight of calumny will be
superadded: he that fails in his endeavours after
wealth or power, will not long retain either honesty
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Tom Sawyer, Detective by Mark Twain: "I killed him! I am guilty! But I never had the notion
in my life to hurt him or harm him, spite of all them lies
about my threatening him, till the very minute I raised
the club--then my heart went cold!--then the pity all went
out of it, and I struck to kill! In that one moment all my
wrongs come into my mind; all the insults that that man
and the scoundrel his brother, there, had put upon me,
and how they laid in together to ruin me with the people,
and take away my good name, and DRIVE me to some deed
that would destroy me and my family that hadn't ever done
THEM no harm, so help me God! And they done it in a mean
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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 Catriona by Robert Louis Stevenson: for a farewell, which I replied to with the waving of my hand. But
Alan himself was shrunk to a small thing in my view, alongside of this
pass that lay in front of me. I set my hat hard on my head, clenched
my teeth, and went right before me up the face of the sand-wreath. It
made a hard climb, being steep, and the sand like water underfoot. But
I caught hold at last by the long bent-grass on the brae-top, and
pulled myself to a good footing. The same moment men stirred and stood
up here and there, six or seven of them, ragged-like knaves, each with
a dagger in his hand. The fair truth is, I shut my eyes and prayed.
When I opened them again, the rogues were crept the least thing nearer
without speech or hurry. Every eye was upon mine, which struck me with
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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 Familiar Studies of Men and Books by Robert Louis Stevenson: were thrilled by the thought of their unusual situation; and
perhaps the soldier gave utterance to the sentiment of both
when he sang, "in Chinese singing" (so that we see he had
already profited by his lessons), these two appropriate
verses:
"We do not know where we are to sleep to-night,
In a thousand miles of desert where we can see no human
smoke."
In a little temple, hard by the sea-shore, they lay down to
repose; sleep overtook them as they lay; and when they awoke,
"the east was already white" for their last morning in Japan.
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