| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Z. Marcas by Honore de Balzac: other, to learn whether there were any change in our plans for the
evening. One day, at four o'clock, Juste met Marcas on the stairs, and
I saw him in the street. It was in the month of November, and Marcas
had no cloak; he wore shoes with heavy soles, corduroy trousers, and a
blue double-breasted coat buttoned to the throat, which gave a
military air to his broad chest, all the more so because he wore a
black stock. The costume was not in itself extraordinary, but it
agreed well with the man's mien and countenance.
My first impression on seeing him was neither surprise, nor distress,
nor interest, nor pity, but curiosity mingled with all these feelings.
He walked slowly, with a step that betrayed deep melancholy, his head
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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 Jungle by Upton Sinclair: is no haven where I can escape them; though I travel to the ends
of the earth, I find the same accursed system--I find that all
the fair and noble impulses of humanity, the dreams of poets and
the agonies of martyrs, are shackled and bound in the service of
organized and predatory Greed! And therefore I cannot rest, I
cannot be silent; therefore I cast aside comfort and happiness,
health and good repute--and go out into the world and cry out the
pain of my spirit! Therefore I am not to be silenced by poverty
and sickness, not by hatred and obloquy, by threats and
ridicule--not by prison and persecution, if they should come--not
by any power that is upon the earth or above the earth, that was,
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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 A Treatise on Parents and Children by George Bernard Shaw: should have no idle rich and indeed probably no rich, since there is
no distinction in being rich if you have to pay scot and lot in
personal effort like the working folk. Therefore, if for only half an
hour a day, a child should do something serviceable to the community.
Productive work for children has the advantage that its discipline is
the discipline of impersonal necessity, not that of wanton personal
coercion. The eagerness of children in our industrial districts to
escape from school to the factory is not caused by lighter tasks or
shorter hours in the factory, nor altogether by the temptation of
wages, nor even by the desire for novelty, but by the dignity of adult
work, the exchange of the factitious personal tyranny of the
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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 Puck of Pook's Hill by Rudyard Kipling: 'That's Forge Mill - our Mill!' Una looked at Puck.
'Yes; yours,' Puck put in. 'How old did you think it was?'
'I don't know. Didn't Sir Richard Dalyngridge talk
about it?'
'He did, and it was old in his day,' Puck answered.
'Hundreds of years old.'
'It was new in mine,' said Parnesius. 'My men looked
at the flour in their helmets as though it had been a nest of
adders. They did it to try my patience. But I - addressed
them, and we became friends. To tell the truth, they
taught me the Roman Step. You see, I'd only served with
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