| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Dawn O'Hara, The Girl Who Laughed by Edna Ferber: the nice old party is so pinched for money that she'll
have to take their offer. So the time has come when
she'll have to leave that old cottage, with its romance,
and its memories, and its lamp in the window, and go to
live in a cheap little flat, see? Where the old
four-poster will choke up the bedroom--"
"And the parlor will be done in red and green," I put
in, eagerly, "and where there will be an ingrowing
sideboard in the dining-room that won't fit in with the
quaint old dinner-set at all, and a kitchenette just off
that, in which the great iron pots and kettles that used
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Aeroplanes and Dirigibles of War by Frederick A. Talbot: a curious circumstance, but every successive Zeppelin disaster,
and their number is legion, has been attributable to a new cause.
In this instance the accident was additionally disturbing,
inasmuch as the ship had been flying across country continuously
for about twelve months and had covered more miles than any
preceding craft of her type. No scientific explanation for the
disaster was forthcoming, but the commander of the vessel, who
sank with his ship, had previously ventured his personal opinion
that the vessel was over-loaded to meet the calls of ambition,
was by no means seaworthy, and that sooner or later she would be
caught by a heavy broadside wind and rendered helpless, or that
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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 Menexenus by Plato: And the reason of this gentleness was the veritable tie of blood, which
created among them a friendship as of kinsmen, faithful not in word only,
but in deed. And we ought also to remember those who then fell by one
another's hands, and on such occasions as these to reconcile them with
sacrifices and prayers, praying to those who have power over them, that
they may be reconciled even as we are reconciled. For they did not attack
one another out of malice or enmity, but they were unfortunate. And that
such was the fact we ourselves are witnesses, who are of the same race with
them, and have mutually received and granted forgiveness of what we have
done and suffered. After this there was perfect peace, and the city had
rest; and her feeling was that she forgave the barbarians, who had severely
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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 Duchesse de Langeais by Honore de Balzac: "We have not the same convictions, General, I am pained to
think. It would be dreadful if a woman could not believe in a
religion which permits us to love beyond the grave. I set
Christian sentiments aside; you cannot understand them. Let me
simply speak to you of expediency. Would you forbid a woman at
court the table of the Lord when it is customary to take the
sacrament at Easter? People must certainly do something for
their party. The Liberals, whatever they may wish to do, will
never destroy the religious instinct. Religion will always be a
political necessity. Would you undertake to govern a nation of
logic-choppers? Napoleon was afraid to try; he persecuted
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