| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Case of the Registered Letter by Grace Isabel Colbron and Augusta Groner: Attorney has made his speech, will cause him humiliation, will ruin
his brilliant arguments and cast ridicule upon him.
Do not think me hard or revengeful. I do not hate anyone now that
death is so near. But is it inhuman that I should want to teach
these two men a lesson? a lesson which they need, believe me, and
it is such a slight compensation for the torture these last eight
years have been to me!
And now I will explain in detail all the circumstances. I have
arranged that Albert Graumann shall come to me on the evening of
September 23rd between 7 and 8 o'clock. I asked him to do so by
letter, asking him also to keep the fact of his visit to me a secret.
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from When a Man Marries by Mary Roberts Rinehart: Yours, Tom
P.S. By the way, can't you spare some of the Indian pottery you
picked up at Callao? I told Mrs. Wilson about it, and she was
immensely interested. Send it to this address. Can you get it to
the next steamer?--T.
FROM MAXWELL REED TO RICHARD BURTON BAGLEY, UNIVERSITY CLUB, NEW
YORK.
Dear Dick:
Enclosed find my check for five hundred, as per wager. Possibly
you were within your rights in protecting your bet in the manner
you chose, but while I do not wish to be offensive, your
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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 Intentions by Oscar Wilde: Anything approaching to the free play of the mind is practically
unknown amongst us. People cry out against the sinner, yet it is
not the sinful, but the stupid, who are our shame. There is no sin
except stupidity.
ERNEST. Ah! what an antinomian you are!
GILBERT. The artistic critic, like the mystic, is an antinomian
always. To be good, according to the vulgar standard of goodness,
is obviously quite easy. It merely requires a certain amount of
sordid terror, a certain lack of imaginative thought, and a certain
low passion for middle-class respectability. Aesthetics are higher
than ethics. They belong to a more spiritual sphere. To discern
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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 Chronicles of the Canongate by Walter Scott: My course of life could not last. I ran too fast to run long;
and when I would have checked my career, I was perhaps too near
the brink of the precipice. Some mishaps I prepared by my own
folly, others came upon me unawares. I put my estate out to
nurse to a fat man of business, who smothered the babe he should
have brought back to me in health and strength, and, in dispute
with this honest gentleman, I found, like a skilful general, that
my position would be most judiciously assumed by taking it up
near the Abbey of Holyrood. [See Note 1.--Holyrood.] It was then
I first became acquainted with the quarter, which my little work
will, I hope, render immortal, and grew familiar with those
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