| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Extracts From Adam's Diary by Mark Twain: It was selected and set apart last November as a day of rest. I
already had six of them per week, before. This morning found the
new creature trying to clod apples out of that forbidden tree.
Monday
The new creature says its name is Eve. That is all right, I have
no objections. Says it is to call it by when I want it to come.
I said it was superfluous, then. The word evidently raised me in
its respect; and indeed it is a large, good word, and will bear
repetition. It says it is not an It, it is a She. This is probably
doubtful; yet it is all one to me; what she is were nothing to me
if she would but go by herself and not talk.
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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 Vision Splendid by William MacLeod Raine: Ashton. Don't let anyone talk to them or get them on the phone.
Better take them up to the library."
James nodded sulkily. He did not like Rawson's peremptory manner
any the better because he knew his indiscretion had called it down
upon him. What he had been unable to forget for the past hour was
that if this break to Frome had happened yesterday it would have
been he that gave the orders and Rawson who jumped to execute
them. Now he had slipped back to second place.
He caught Jeff on the line and repeated Rawson's orders without
comment of his own, after which he went back from the committee
room, gathered up Reilly and Ashton, and took them on a pretext to
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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 The Ruling Passion by Henry van Dyke: sinewy figure of the man. He never gave a thought to his looks, but
peeled his potatoes with a dexterity which betrayed a past-master of
the humble art, and threw the skins into the fire.
"Look you, m'sieu'," he said to young Winthrop Alden, who sat on a
fallen tree near him, mending the fly-rod which he had broken in the
morning's fishing, "look you, it is an affair of the most strange,
yet of the most certain. We have known always that ours was a good
family. The name tells it. The Lamottes are of la haute classe in
France. But here, in Canada, we are poor. Yet the good blood dies
not with the poverty. It is buried, hidden, but it remains the
same. It is like these pataques. You plant good ones for seed: you
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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 The Memorabilia by Xenophon: for his kindness to them. He became attached to them as helpmates; and
the end of it all was, he came to Socrates and told him with delight
how matters fared; "and now," he added, "they tax me with being the
only drone in the house, who sit and eat the bread of idleness."
To which Socrates: Why do not you tell them the fable of the dog?[10]
Once on a time, so goes the story, when beasts could speak, the sheep
said to her master, "What a marvel is this, master, that to us, your
own sheep, who provide you with fleeces and lambs and cheese, you give
nothing, save only what we may nibble off earth's bosom; but with this
dog of yours, who provides you with nothing of the sort, you share the
very meat out of your mouth." When the dog heard these words, he
The Memorabilia |
