| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from A Sentimental Journey by Laurence Sterne: PARDI! CE MONSIEUR YORICK A AUTANT D'ESPRIT QUE NOUS AUTRES. - IL
RAISONNE BIEN, said another. - C'EST UN BON ENFANT, said a third. -
And at this price I could have eaten and drank and been merry all
the days of my life at Paris; but 'twas a dishonest RECKONING; - I
grew ashamed of it. - It was the gain of a slave; - every sentiment
of honour revolted against it; - the higher I got, the more was I
forced upon my BEGGARLY SYSTEM; - the better the COTERIE, - the
more children of Art; - I languish'd for those of Nature: and one
night, after a most vile prostitution of myself to half a dozen
different people, I grew sick, - went to bed; - order'd La Fleur to
get me horses in the morning to set out for Italy.
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from At the Sign of the Cat & Racket by Honore de Balzac: Theodore's clear and steadfast gaze, she began to quake. When she
asked whether monsieur were at home her voice shook. On learning that
he would not be in to dinner, she felt an unaccountable thrill of joy.
Like a criminal who has appealed against sentence of death, a respite,
however short, seemed to her a lifetime. She placed the portrait in
her room, and waited for her husband in all the agonies of hope. That
this venture must decide her future life, she felt too keenly not to
shiver at every sound, even the low ticking of the clock, which seemed
to aggravate her terrors by doling them out to her. She tried to cheat
time by various devices. The idea struck her of dressing in a way
which would make her exactly like the portrait. Then, knowing her
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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 Edingburgh Picturesque Notes by Robert Louis Stevenson: about the city; and the well-fed heart sits lightly and
beats gaily in the - bosom. It is New-year's weather.
New-year's Day, the great national festival, is a
time of family expansions and of deep carousal.
Sometimes, by a sore stoke of fate for this Calvinistic
people, the year's anniversary fails upon a Sunday, when
the public-houses are inexorably closed, when singing and
even whistling is banished from our homes and highways,
and the oldest toper feels called upon to go to church.
Thus pulled about, as if between two loyalties, the
Scotch have to decide many nice cases of conscience, and
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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 Ion by Plato: of the mind on a single object, or on a single aspect of human nature,
overpowers the orderly perception of the whole. Yet the feelings too bring
truths home to the minds of many who in the way of reason would be
incapable of understanding them. Reflections of this kind may have been
passing before Plato's mind when he describes the poet as inspired, or
when, as in the Apology, he speaks of poets as the worst critics of their
own writings--anybody taken at random from the crowd is a better
interpreter of them than they are of themselves. They are sacred persons,
'winged and holy things' who have a touch of madness in their composition
(Phaedr.), and should be treated with every sort of respect (Republic), but
not allowed to live in a well-ordered state. Like the Statesmen in the
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