| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Love Songs by Sara Teasdale: Who loved me not at all,
I owe the open gate
That led through heaven's wall.
Faults
They came to tell your faults to me,
They named them over one by one;
I laughed aloud when they were done,
I knew them all so well before, --
Oh, they were blind, too blind to see
Your faults had made me love you more.
Buried Love
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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 Crowd by Gustave le Bon: imperativeness would enforce the assent even of an inorganic mass
were it capable of following associations of identities." This
is doubtless true, but a crowd is no more capable than an
inorganic mass of following such associations, nor even of
understanding them. If the attempt be made to convince by
reasoning primitive minds--savages or children, for instance--the
slight value possessed by this method of arguing will be
understood.
It is not even necessary to descend so low as primitive beings to
obtain an insight into the utter powerlessness of reasoning when
it has to fight against sentiment. Let us merely call to mind
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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 Silverado Squatters by Robert Louis Stevenson: ostler would swing round the great barrier across the road;
and in the golden evening, that dreamy inn begin to trim its
lamps and spread the board for supper.
As I recall the place - the green dell below; the spires of
pine; the sun-warm, scented air; that gray, gabled inn, with
its faint stirrings of life amid the slumber of the mountains
- I slowly awake to a sense of admiration, gratitude, and
almost love. A fine place, after all, for a wasted life to
doze away in - the cuckoo clock hooting of its far home
country; the croquet mallets, eloquent of English lawns; the
stages daily bringing news of - the turbulent world away
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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 Cousin Betty by Honore de Balzac: "Ah! you are of all creatures the noblest and best! You are a match
for the woman I love," said the poor artist.
"I love you well enough to tremble for your future fate," said she
gloomily. "Judas hanged himself--the ungrateful always come to a bad
end! You are deserting me, and you will never again do any good work.
Consider whether, without being married--for I know I am an old maid,
and I do not want to smother the blossom of your youth, your poetry,
as you call it, in my arms, that are like vine-stocks--but whether,
without being married, we could not get on together? Listen; I have
the commercial spirit; I could save you a fortune in the course of ten
years' work, for Economy is my name!--while, with a young wife, who
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