| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Early Short Fiction of Edith Wharton by Edith Wharton: alone in the long, silent, shadowy room, her dread seemed to take
shape and sound, to be there audibly breathing and lurking among
the shadows. Her short-sighted eyes strained through them, half-
discerning an actual presence, something aloof, that watched and
knew; and in the recoil from that intangible propinquity she
threw herself suddenly on the bell-rope and gave it a desperate
pull.
The long, quavering summons brought Trimmle in precipitately with
a lamp, and Mary breathed again at this sobering reappearance of
the usual.
"You may bring tea if Mr. Boyne is in," she said, to justify her
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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 The Crowd by Gustave le Bon: protection or the privilege of distilling alcohol, questions in
which the interests of influential electors are involved. The
suggestion emanating from these electors and undergone before the
time to vote arrives, sufficiently outweighs suggestions from any
other source to annul them and to maintain an absolute fixity of
opinion.[27]
[27] The following reflection of an English parliamentarian of
long experience doubtless applies to these opinions, fixed
beforehand, and rendered unalterable by electioneering
necessities: "During the fifty years that I have sat at
Westminster, I have listened to thousands of speeches; but few of
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