| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Before Adam by Jack London: logs together with tough vines or stringy roots. We
were content to hold the logs together with our hands
and feet.
It was not until we got over our first enthusiasm for
navigation and had begun to return to our tree-shelter
to sleep at night, that we found the Swift One. I saw
her first, gathering young acorns from the branches of
a large oak near our tree. She was very timid. At
first, she kept very still; but when she saw that she
was discovered she dropped to the ground and dashed
wildly away. We caught occasional glimpses of her from
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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 Country of the Pointed Firs by Sarah Orne Jewett: a tea-cup. I sat in my high-backed rocking-chair by the window in
the front room with an unreasonable feeling of being left out, like
the child who stood at the gate in Hans Andersen's story. Mrs.
Fosdick did not look, at first sight, like a person of great social
gifts. She was a serious-looking little bit of an old woman, with
a birdlike nod of the head. I had often been told that she was the
"best hand in the world to make a visit,"--as if to visit were the
highest of vocations; that everybody wished for her, while few
could get her; and I saw that Mrs. Todd felt a comfortable sense of
distinction in being favored with the company of this eminent
person who "knew just how." It was certainly true that Mrs.
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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 An Ideal Husband by Oscar Wilde: before. He is finer than even I thought him. [To SIR ROBERT
CHILTERN.] You will go and write your letter to the Prime Minister
now, won't you? Don't hesitate about it, Robert.
SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. [With a touch of bitterness.] I suppose I had
better write it at once. Such offers are not repeated. I will ask
you to excuse me for a moment, Lord Caversham.
LADY CHILTERN. I may come with you, Robert, may I not?
SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. Yes, Gertrude.
[LADY CHILTERN goes out with him.]
LORD CAVERSHAM. What is the matter with this family? Something
wrong here, eh? [Tapping his forehead.] Idiocy? Hereditary, I
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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 Dream Life and Real Life by Olive Schreiner: girl lying in the hot sun. Then he walked off, and caught one of the
fattest little Angora goats, and held its mouth fast, as he stuck it under
his arm. He looked back to see that she was still sleeping, and jumped down
into one of the sluits. He walked down the bed of the sluit a little way
and came to an overhanging bank, under which, sitting on the red sand, were
two men. One was a tiny, ragged, old bushman, four feet high; the other
was an English navvy, in a dark blue blouse. They cut the kid's throat
with the navvy's long knife, and covered up the blood with sand, and buried
the entrails and skin. Then they talked, and quarrelled a little; and then
they talked quietly again.
The Hottentot man put a leg of the kid under his coat and left the rest of
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