| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia by Samuel Johnson: He reasons, and conviction closes his periods. This man shall be
my future guide: I will learn his doctrines and imitate his life."
"Be not too hasty," said Imlac, "to trust or to admire the teachers
of morality: they discourse like angels, but they live like men."
Rasselas, who could not conceive how any man could reason so
forcibly without feeling the cogency of his own arguments, paid his
visit in a few days, and was denied admission. He had now learned
the power of money, and made his way by a piece of gold to the
inner apartment, where he found the philosopher in a room half
darkened, with his eyes misty and his face pale. "Sir," said he,
"you are come at a time when all human friendship is useless; what
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The $30,000 Bequest and Other Stories by Mark Twain: was daily endeavoring to convey to me: I must catch a Verb and
tame it. I must find out its ways, I must spot its eccentricities,
I must penetrate its disguises, I must intelligently foresee and
forecast at least the commoner of the dodges it was likely to try
upon a stranger in given circumstances, I must get in on its main
shifts and head them off, I must learn its game and play the limit.
I had noticed, in other foreign languages, that verbs are bred
in families, and that the members of each family have certain features
or resemblances that are common to that family and distinguish it
from the other families--the other kin, the cousins and what not.
I had noticed that this family-mark is not usually the nose or the hair,
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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 Sanitary and Social Lectures by Charles Kingsley: by Messrs. Jarrold, Paternoster Row, for the Ladies' Sanitary
Association; especially one which bears on this subject: "The
Black-hole in our own Bedrooms;" Dr. Lankester's "School Manual of
Health;" or a manual on ventilation, published by the Metropolitan
Working Classes Association for the Improvement of Public Health.
I look forward--I say it openly--to some period of higher
civilisation, when the Acts of Parliament for the ventilation of
factories and workshops shall be largely extended, and made far
more stringent; when officers of public health shall be empowered
to enforce the ventilation of every room in which persons are
employed for hire: and empowered also to demand a proper system
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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 1492 by Mary Johntson: I learn much by voices and before I turned I knew that
this was an enthusiast's voice, but not an enthusiast without
knowledge. Whoever spoke was strong enough, real enough.
I liked the voice and felt a certain inner movement of friendship.
Some shift among the great actors, some parting of
banners, kept us suspended and staring for a moment, then
the view closed against us who could only behold by snatches.
Freed, I turned to see who had spoken and found a tall,
strongly made, white-haired man. The silver hair was too
soon; he could hardly have been ten years my elder. He
had a long, fair face that might once have been tanned and
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