| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Westward Ho! by Charles Kingsley: Especially too, if you be Americans, look at their faces, and
reverence them; for to them and to their wisdom you owe the
existence of your mighty fatherland.
At the head of the table sits the lord mayor; whom all readers will
recognize at once, for he is none other than that famous Sir Edward
Osborne, clothworker, and ancestor of the dukes of Leeds, whose
romance now-a-days is in every one's hands. He is aged, but not
changed, since he leaped from the window upon London Bridge into
the roaring tide below, to rescue the infant who is now his wife.
The chivalry and promptitude of the 'prentice boy have grown and
hardened into the thoughtful daring of the wealthy merchant
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Intentions by Oscar Wilde: quotations from the poets. Come! We have talked long enough.
PEN, PENCIL AND POISON - A STUDY IN GREEN
It has constantly been made a subject of reproach against artists
and men of letters that they are lacking in wholeness and
completeness of nature. As a rule this must necessarily be so.
That very concentration of vision and intensity of purpose which is
the characteristic of the artistic temperament is in itself a mode
of limitation. To those who are preoccupied with the beauty of
form nothing else seems of much importance. Yet there are many
exceptions to this rule. Rubens served as ambassador, and Goethe
as state councillor, and Milton as Latin secretary to Cromwell.
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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 Tom Grogan by F. Hopkinson Smith: If I had me way, ye would walk, but it would be on yer uppers, wid
yer bare feet to the road."
Crimmins again attempted to speak, but she raised her arm
threateningly: "Now, if it's walkin' ye are, ye can begin right
away. Let me see ye earn yer wages down that garden an' into the
road. Come, lively now, before I disgrace meself a-layin' hands
on the likes of ye!"
V
A WORD FROM THE TENEMENTS
One morning Patsy came up the garden path limping on his crutch;
the little fellow's eyes were full of tears. He had been out 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 La Grenadiere by Honore de Balzac: her, even those thoughts which they did not share. But the older boy,
with a precocious power of thought, would not rest satisfied with his
mother's assertion that she was perfectly well. He scanned her face
with uneasy forebodings; the exact danger he did not know, but dimly
he felt it threatening in those purple rings about her eyes, in the
deepening hollows under them, and the feverish red that deepened in
her face. If Marie's play began to tire her, his sensitive tact was
quick to discover this, and he would call to his brother:
"Come, Marie! let us run in to breakfast, I am hungry!"
But when they reached the door, he would look back to catch the
expression on his mother's face. She still could find a smile for him,
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