| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Damaged Goods by Upton Sinclair: small that at first he paid no attention to it at all.
He noted upon his body one day a tiny ulcer. At first he treated
it with salve purchased from an apothecary. Then after a week or
two, when this had no effect, he began to feel uncomfortable. He
remembered suddenly he had heard about the symptoms of an
unmentionable, dreadful disease, and a vague terror took
possession of him.
For days he tried to put it to one side. The idea was nonsense,
it was absurd in connection with a woman so respectable! But the
thought would not be put away, and finally he went to a school
friend, who was a man of the world, and got him to talk on the
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Ivanhoe by Walter Scott: to excite compassion, but like a man borne
down on all sides by the pressure of some invisible
force, which crushes him to the earth without the
power of resistance.
``Holy God of Abraham!'' was his first exclamation,
folding and elevating his wrinkled hands,
but without raising his grey head from the pavement;
``Oh, holy Moses! O, blessed Aaron! the
dream is not dreamed for nought, and the vision
cometh not in vain! I feel their irons already tear
my sinews! I feel the rack pass over my body like
Ivanhoe |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Burning Daylight by Jack London: other hand, was what he gave a conscience dole. He owed no man,
and restitution was unthinkable. What he gave was a largess, a
free, spontaneous gift; and it was for those about him. He never
contributed to an earthquake fund in Japan nor to an open-air
fund in New York City. Instead, he financed Jones, the elevator
boy, for a year that he might write a book. When he learned that
the wife of his waiter at the St. Francis was suffering from
tuberculosis, he sent her to Arizona, and later, when her case
was declared hopeless, he sent the husband, too, to be with her
to the end. Likewise, he bought a string of horse-hair bridles
from a convict in a Western penitentiary, who spread the good
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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 Z. Marcas by Honore de Balzac: the crupper of every event. Of the two, Carrel was the better man.
Well, one becomes a minister, Carrel remained a journalist; the
incomplete but craftier man is living; Carrel is dead.
"I may point out that your man has for fifteen years been making his
way, and is but making it still. He may yet be caught and crushed
between two cars full of intrigues on the highroad to power. He has no
house; he has not the favor of the palace like Metternich; nor, like
Villele, the protection of a compact majority.
"I do not believe that the present state of things will last ten
years longer. Hence, supposing I should have such poor good luck,
I am already too late to avoid being swept away by the commotion
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