| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Door in the Wall, et. al. by H. G. Wells: was sorry even while I was speaking.
He turned a haggard but very composed face upon me. Said he:
"I forgot myself. Of course you would not understand."
He measured me for a moment. "No doubt it is very absurd.
You will not believe me even when I tell you, so that it is fairly
safe to tell you. And it will be a comfort to tell someone. I
really have a big business in hand, a very big business. But there
are troubles just now. The fact is . . . . I make diamonds."
"I suppose," said I, "you are out of work just at present?"
"I am sick of being disbelieved," he said impatiently, and
suddenly unbuttoning his wretched coat he pulled out a little
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from A Footnote to History by Robert Louis Stevenson: before Knappe came." Why, then, had he changed it? This
excellent, if ignominious, idea once entertained, why was it let
drop? It is to be remembered there was another German in the
field, Brandeis, who had a respect, or rather, perhaps, an
affection, for Tamasese, and who thought his own honour and that of
his country engaged in the support of that government which they
had provoked and founded. Becker described the captain to Laupepa
as "a quiet, sensible gentleman." If any word came to his ears of
the intended manoeuvre, Brandeis would certainly show himself very
sensible of the affront; but Becker might have been tempted to
withdraw his former epithet of quiet. Some such passage, some such
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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 Princess by Alfred Tennyson: In whose least act abides the nameless charm
That none has else for me?' She heard, she moved,
She moaned, a folded voice; and up she sat,
And raised the cloak from brows as pale and smooth
As those that mourn half-shrouded over death
In deathless marble. 'Her,' she said, 'my friend--
Parted from her--betrayed her cause and mine--
Where shall I breathe? why kept ye not your faith?
O base and bad! what comfort? none for me!'
To whom remorseful Cyril, 'Yet I pray
Take comfort: live, dear lady, for your child!'
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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 Merry Men by Robert Louis Stevenson: but the weaknesses of girls, from which even she, the strangest of
her sex, was not exempted. Go? Not I, Olalla - O, not I, Olalla,
my Olalla! A bird sang near by; and in that season, birds were
rare. It bade me be of good cheer. And once more the whole
countenance of nature, from the ponderous and stable mountains down
to the lightest leaf and the smallest darting fly in the shadow of
the groves, began to stir before me and to put on the lineaments of
life and wear a face of awful joy. The sunshine struck upon the
hills, strong as a hammer on the anvil, and the hills shook; the
earth, under that vigorous insulation, yielded up heady scents; the
woods smouldered in the blaze. I felt the thrill of travail and
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