| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Captain Stormfield by Mark Twain: private, but he had lost both thumbs and a couple of front teeth,
and the recruiting sergeant wouldn't pass him. However, as I say,
everybody knows, now, what he WOULD have been, - and so they flock
by the million to get a glimpse of him whenever they hear he is
going to be anywhere. Caesar, and Hannibal, and Alexander, and
Napoleon are all on his staff, and ever so many more great
generals; but the public hardly care to look at THEM when HE is
around. Boom! There goes another salute. The barkeeper's off
quarantine now."
Sandy and I put on our things. Then we made a wish, and in a
second we were at the reception-place. We stood on the edge of 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 Polly of the Circus by Margaret Mayo: was something pathetic in the eagerness of the starved little
mind.
"Well, I ain't much on readin'--OUT LOUD," she faltered, growing
suddenly conscious of her deficiencies. "Read it for me, will
you?"
"Certainly," and he drew his chair nearer to the bed. One strong
hand supported the other half of the Bible, and his head was very
near to hers as his deep, full voice pronounced the solemn words
in which Ruth pleaded so many years before.
" 'Entreat me not to leave thee,' " he read, " 'or to return from
following after thee, for whither thou goest I will go, and where
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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 Profits of Religion by Upton Sinclair: and in the West and South they dominate the intellectual life of
the country. I do not wish to be unfair in what I say of them.
They are far more democratic than the Catholic Church; they fight
valiantly against the liquor traffic and those forms of graft
which are obvious, or directly derived from vice. There are among
their clergy many men who are honestly seeking light, and trying
to make their institutions a factor for progress. But they are
caught in the spirit of Lutheran scholasticism, narrow and
ignorant, dogmatic and jealous; and they cannot help it, because
they are pledged by their creeds and foundations to
Tradition-worship; they have to believe certain things because
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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 Roads of Destiny by O. Henry: Mr. Robert lit a cigar in the shadow, and the smoke looked like his
gray ghost expanding and escaping into the night air. Somehow, Uncle
Bushrod could barely force his reluctant tongue to the dreadful
subject. He stood, awkward, shambling, with his feet upon the gravel
and fumbling with his stick. But then, afar off--three miles away, at
the Jimtown switch--he heard the faint whistle of the coming train,
the one that was to transport the Weymouth name into the regions of
dishonour and shame. All fear left him. He took off his hat and faced
the chief of the clan he served, the great, royal, kind, lofty,
terrible Weymouth--he bearded him there at the brink of the awful
thing that was about to happen.
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