The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Tristram Shandy by Laurence Sterne: complaisance so far, as to have left a seventh open for them,--and in this
very spot I stand on; but being told by a Critick (tho' not by occupation,-
-but by nature) that I had acquitted myself well enough, I shall fill it up
directly, hoping, in the mean time, that I shall be able to make a great
deal of more room next year.
--How, in the name of wonder! could your uncle Toby, who, it seems, was a
military man, and whom you have represented as no fool,--be at the same
time such a confused, pudding-headed, muddle-headed, fellow, as--Go look.
So, Sir Critick, I could have replied; but I scorn it.--'Tis language
unurbane,--and only befitting the man who cannot give clear and
satisfactory accounts of things, or dive deep enough into the first causes
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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 Arizona Nights by Stewart Edward White: But now our torches began to run low. A small dry bush grew near
the entrance. We ignited it, and while it blazed we hastily
sorted a blanket apiece and tumbled the rest out of the drip.
Our return without torches along the base of that butte was
something to remember. The night was so thick you could feel the
darkness pressing on you; the mountain dropped abruptly to the
left, and was strewn with boulders and blocks of stone.
Collisions and stumbles were frequent. Once I stepped off a
little ledge five or six feet--nothing worse than a barked shin.
And all the while the rain, pelting us unmercifully, searched out
what poor little remnants of dryness we had been able to retain.
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