| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Wyoming by William MacLeod Raine: head set that was making up. The floor was rough, the music jerky
and uncertain, the quadrilling an exhibition of joyous and
awkward abandon; but its picturesque lack of convention appealed
to the girl from Michigan. It rather startled her to be swung so
vigorously, but a glance about the room showed that these
humorous-eyed Westerners were merely living up to the duty of the
hour as they understood it.
At the close of the quadrille Helen found herself being
introduced to "Mr. Robins," alias Slim, who drew one of his feet
back in an embarrassed bow.
"I enjoy to meet y'u, ma'am," he assured her, and supplemented
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Under the Andes by Rex Stout: own rooms.
At dinner that evening Harry was in high spirits and took
great delight in everything that was said, both witty and dull,
while Le Mire positively sparkled.
She made her impression; not a man in the well-filled room but
sent his tribute of admiring glances as she sat seemingly
unconscious of all but Harry and myself. That is always agreeable;
a man owes something to the woman who carries a room for him.
I had intended to have a talk with Harry after dinner, but I
postponed it; the morning would assuredly be better. There was
dancing in the salon, but we were all too tired to take advantage
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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 Glaucus/The Wonders of the Shore by Charles Kingsley: anemones), and in a quite opposite one the Holothuriae, those
strange sea-cucumbers, with their mouth-fringe of feathery gills,
of which you shall see some anon. Thus there has been, in the
Creative Mind, as it gave life to new species, a development of the
idea on which older species were created, in order - we may fancy -
that every mesh of the great net might gradually be supplied, and
there should be no gaps in the perfect variety of Nature's forms.
This development is one which we must believe to be at least
possible, if we allow that a Mind presides over the universe, and
not a mere brute necessity, a Law (absurd misnomer) without a
Lawgiver; and to it (strangely enough coinciding here and there
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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 Beauty and The Beast by Bayard Taylor: "Oh, I see," said Mr. Billings, "you still remember the absurdities
of those days. In fact, I think you partially saw through them
then. But I was younger, and far from being so clear-headed, and
I looked upon those evenings at Shelldrake's as being equal, at
least, to the symposia of Plato. Something in Mallory always
repelled me. I detested the sight of his thick nose, with the
flaring nostrils, and his coarse, half-formed lips, of the bluish
color of raw corned-beef. But I looked upon these feelings as
unreasonable prejudices, and strove to conquer them, seeing the
admiration which he received from others. He was an oracle on the
subject of `Nature.' Having eaten nothing for two years, except
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