| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Jungle by Upton Sinclair: scare any ordinary visitor at a hundred yards, and as for the other men,
who worked in tank rooms full of steam, and in some of which there were
open vats near the level of the floor, their peculiar trouble was that
they fell into the vats; and when they were fished out, there was never
enough of them left to be worth exhibiting,--sometimes they would be
overlooked for days, till all but the bones of them had gone out to the
world as Durham's Pure Leaf Lard!
Chapter 10
During the early part of the winter the family had had money enough
to live and a little over to pay their debts with; but when the
earnings of Jurgis fell from nine or ten dollars a week to five or six,
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Black Beauty by Anna Sewell: The perfect rest, the good food, the soft turf, and gentle exercise,
soon began to tell on my condition and my spirits. I had a good constitution
from my mother, and I was never strained when I was young,
so that I had a better chance than many horses who have been worked
before they came to their full strength. During the winter
my legs improved so much that I began to feel quite young again.
The spring came round, and one day in March Mr. Thoroughgood determined
that he would try me in the phaeton. I was well pleased,
and he and Willie drove me a few miles. My legs were not stiff now,
and I did the work with perfect ease.
"He's growing young, Willie; we must give him a little gentle work now,
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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 Enoch Arden, &c. by Alfred Tennyson: Wherefore in me burns an anger, not by blood to be satiated.
Lo the palaces and the temple, lo the colony Camulodune!
There they ruled, and thence they wasted all the flourishing territory,
Thither at their will they haled the yellow-ringleted Britoness--
Bloodily, bloodily fall the battle-axe, unexhausted, inexorable.
Shout Icenian, Catieuchlanian, shout Coritanian, Trinobant,
Till the victim hear within and yearn to hurry precipitously
Like the leaf in a roaring whirlwind, like the smoke in a hurricane whirl'd.
Lo the colony, there they rioted in the city of Cunobeline!
There they drank in cups of emerald, there at tables of ebony lay,
Rolling on their purple couches in their tender effeminacy.
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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 Historical Lecturers and Essays by Charles Kingsley: "Mr. George was a Stoic philosopher, who looked not far before him;"
in plain words, a high-minded and right-minded man, bent on doing
the duty which lay nearest him. The worst that can be said against
him during these times is, that his name appears with the sum of 100
pounds against it, as one of those "who were to be entertained in
Scotland by pensions out of England;" and Ruddiman, of course,
comments on the fact by saying that Buchanan "was at length to act
under the threefold character of malcontent, reformer, and
pensioner:" but it gives no proof whatsoever that Buchanan ever
received any such bribe; and in the very month, seemingly, in which
that list was written--10th March, 1579--Buchanan had given a proof
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