| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Pathology of Lying, Etc. by William and Mary Healy: conditions where others storm. She says she never is frightened,
that she never worries, or is sorry. She is well aware of her
own ego; that she may be trespassing upon the rights of others
never seems to enter her head. Certain simulations of physical
ailments, which at times she showed, we could only interpret as
part of her general tendency to misrepresent.
Our summary of the causative factors in this case, made,
unfortunately, partly on the basis of this unreliable girl's
testimony, offers the following explanation of her remarkable
tendencies:
(a) There was early development of an inner life which dealt
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Dark Lady of the Sonnets by George Bernard Shaw: all their foulness, shall be more thought on than fair ones. _[To
Shakespear, scolding at him]_ Deny it if thou canst. Oh, he is
compact of lies and scorns. I am tired of being tossed up to heaven
and dragged down to hell at every whim that takes him. I am ashamed
to my very soul that I have abased myself to love one that my father
would not have deemed fit to hold my stirrup--one that will talk to
all the world about me--that will put my love and my shame into his
plays and make me blush for myself there--that will write sonnets
about me that no man of gentle strain would put his hand to. I am all
disordered: I know not what I am saying to your Majesty: I am of all
ladies most deject and wretched--
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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 Another Study of Woman by Honore de Balzac: waking at about four in the morning, signed to me in the most touching
way, with a friendly smile, to bid me leave him to rest, and she
meanwhile was about to die. She had become incredibly thin, but her
face had preserved its really sublime outline and features. Her pallor
made her skin look like porcelain with a light within. Her bright eyes
and color contrasted with this languidly elegant complexion, and her
countenance was full of expressive calm. She seemed to pity the Duke,
and the feeling had its origin in a lofty tenderness which, as death
approached, seemed to know no bounds. The silence was absolute. The
room, softly lighted by a lamp, looked like every sickroom at the hour
of death.
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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 Tales of the Klondyke by Jack London: chunks of moose meat, alternated with thin ribbons of bacon.
"Did you stop in Dawson long?" The man was whittling a stave of
birchwood into a rude axe-handle, and asked the question without
raising his head.
"Oh, a few days," she answered, following the girl with her eyes,
and hardly hearing. "What were you saying? In Dawson? A month,
in fact, and glad to get away. The arctic male is elemental, you
know, and somewhat strenuous in his feelings."
"Bound to be when he gets right down to the soil. He leaves
convention with the spring bed at borne. But you were wise in
your choice of time for leaving. You'll be out of the country
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