| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Black Dwarf by Walter Scott: and freckled, had a sinister expression of violence, impudence,
and cunning, each of which seemed alternately to predominate over
the others. Sandy-coloured hair, and reddish eyebrows, from
under which looked forth his sharp grey eyes, completed the
inauspicious outline of the horseman's physiognomy. He had
pistols in his holsters, and another pair peeped from his belt,
though he had taken some pains to conceal them by buttoning his
doublet. He wore a rusted steel head piece; a buff jacket of
rather an antique cast; gloves, of which that for the right hand
was covered with small scales of iron, like an ancient gauntlet;
and a long broadsword completed his equipage.
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Damaged Goods by Upton Sinclair: that. "Impossible!" he said. "There is not even a man
sufficiently wicked or unjust to commit the act which you
attribute to your God!"
"Yes," said his mother, sadly, "you believe in nothing."
"I believe in no such God as that," he answered.
A silence followed. When it was broken, it was by the entrance
of the nurse. She had opened the door of the room and had been
standing there for some moments, unheeded. Finally she stepped
forward. "Madame," she said, "I have thought it over; I would
rather go back to my home at once, and have only the five hundred
francs."
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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 Malbone: An Oldport Romance by Thomas Wentworth Higginson: days' fog was dispersing. The southwest breeze rippled the
deep blue water; sailboats, blue, red, and green, were darting
about like white-winged butterflies; sloops passed and
repassed, cutting the air with the white and slender points of
their gaff-topsails. The liberated sunbeams spread and
penetrated everywhere, and even came up to play (reflected from
the water) beneath the shadowy, overhanging counters of dark
vessels. Beyond, the atmosphere was still busy in rolling away
its vapors, brushing the last gray fringes from the low hills,
and leaving over them only the thinnest aerial veil. Farther
down the bay, the pale tower of the crumbling fort was now
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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 The Marriage Contract by Honore de Balzac: surface. Solonet remained therefore in a self-satisfied condition of
hope and becoming respect. Being sent for, he arrived the next morning
with the promptitude of a slave and was received by the coquettish
widow in her bedroom, where she allowed him to find her in a very
becoming dishabille.
"Can I," she said, "count upon your discretion and your entire
devotion in a discussion which will take place in my house this
evening? You will readily understand that it relates to the marriage
of my daughter."
The young man expended himself in gallant protestations.
"Now to the point," she said.
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