| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Great Big Treasury of Beatrix Potter by Beatrix Potter: how they could be stitched by an old
man in spectacles, with crooked old
fingers, and a tailor's thimble.
The stitches of those buttonholes
were so small--SO small--they looked
as if they had been made by little
mice!
THE TALE OF
SQUIRREL NUTKIN
[A Story for Norah]
This is a Tale about a tail--a tail
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Lesser Hippias by Plato: The motive or leading thought of the dialogue may be detected in Xen. Mem.,
and there is no similar instance of a 'motive' which is taken from Xenophon
in an undoubted dialogue of Plato. On the other hand, the upholders of the
genuineness of the dialogue will find in the Hippias a true Socratic
spirit; they will compare the Ion as being akin both in subject and
treatment; they will urge the authority of Aristotle; and they will detect
in the treatment of the Sophist, in the satirical reasoning upon Homer, in
the reductio ad absurdum of the doctrine that vice is ignorance, traces of
a Platonic authorship. In reference to the last point we are doubtful, as
in some of the other dialogues, whether the author is asserting or
overthrowing the paradox of Socrates, or merely following the argument
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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 Dust by Mr. And Mrs. Haldeman-Julius: The next bolt broke above the house, and the light it threw
showed her the stripling split and lying on the ground. In the
impenetrable darkness she realized that the house fuse of their
Delco system must have been blown out, and she groped blindly for
a match. She could hear the rain coming down again, now in
rivers. There was unchained wrath in the downpour, viciousness.
It was a madman rushing in to rend and tear. It frothed, and
writhed, and spat hatred. Rose shook as though gripped by a
strong hand. She was afraid--of the rain, the lightning, the
thunder, the darkness; alone there, waiting for them to bring her
Billy. She was too terrified to add her weeping to the wail of
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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 New Arabian Nights by Robert Louis Stevenson: briefly and clearly, and departed from the room without permitting
Silas any time to answer.
The next morning Silas presented himself at the hotel, where he was
politely received by Colonel Geraldine, and relieved, from that
moment, of all immediate alarm about his trunk and its grisly
contents. The journey passed over without much incident, although
the young man was horrified to overhear the sailors and railway
porters complaining among themselves about the unusual weight of
the Prince's baggage. Silas travelled in a carriage with the
valets, for Prince Florizel chose to be alone with his Master of
the Horse. On board the steamer, however, Silas attracted his
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