| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Astoria by Washington Irving: and then like spectres from the hatchways, in capotes and
blankets, with dirty nightcaps, grizzly beard, lantern visage and
unhappy eye, shivering about the deck, and ever and anon crawling
to the sides of the vessel, and offering up their tributes to the
windward, to infinite annoyance of the captain.
His letters to Mr. Astor, wherein he pours forth the bitterness
of his soul, and his seamanlike impatience of what he considers
the "lubberly" character and conduct of those around him, are
before us, and are amusingly characteristic. The honest captain
is full of vexation on his own account, and solicitude on account
of Mr. Astor, whose property he considers at the mercy of a most
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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 War in the Air by H. G. Wells: band of bullies led by a chief called Bill Gore who had begun
life as a butcher boy and developed into a prize-fighter and a
professional sport. They had been organised by a local nobleman
of former eminence upon the turf, but after a time he had
disappeared, no one quite knew how and Bill had succeeded to the
leadership of the countryside, and had developed his teacher's
methods with considerable vigour. There had been a strain of
advanced philosophy about the local nobleman, and his mind ran to
"improving the race" and producing the Over-Man, which in
practice took the form of himself especially and his little band
in moderation marrying with some frequency. Bill followed up the
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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: And I must protest, in like wise, against a misuse of the words
"hero." "heroism," "heroic," which is becoming too common, namely,
applying them to mere courage. We have borrowed the misuse, I
believe, as we have more than one beside, from the French press.
I trust that we shall neither accept it, nor the temper which
inspires it. It may be convenient for those who flatter their
nation, and especially the military part of it, into a ruinous
self-conceit, to frame some such syllogism as this: "Courage is
heroism: every Frenchman is naturally courageous: therefore
every Frenchman is a hero." But we, who have been trained at once
in a sounder school of morals, and in a greater respect for facts,
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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 A Straight Deal by Owen Wister: game. We do have some rules here in America, only we have not nearly so
many, they're much more stretchable, and it's not all of us who have
learned them. But nevertheless a good many have.
Suppose you were traveling in a train here, and the man next you, whose
face you had never seen before, and with whom you had not yet exchanged a
syllable, said: "What's your pet name for your wife?"
Wouldn't your immediate inclination be to say, "What damned business is
that of yours?" or words to that general effect?
But again, you most naturally object, there was nothing personal in my
friend's question about the buildings. No; but that is not it. At the
bottom, both questions are an invasion of the same deep-seated thing--the
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