| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson by Robert Louis Stevenson: and the death of a very old friend, which came upon me like a
thunderclap, have rather shelved my powers. I stare upon the
paper, not write. I wish I could write like your Sculptors; yet I
am well aware that I should not try in that direction. A certain
warmth (tepid enough) and a certain dash of the picturesque are my
poor essential qualities; and if I went fooling after the too
classical, I might lose even these. But I envied you that page.
I am, of course, deep in schemes; I was so ever. Execution alone
somewhat halts. How much do you make per annum, I wonder? This
year, for the first time, I shall pass 300 pounds; I may even get
halfway to the next milestone. This seems but a faint
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Dreams & Dust by Don Marquis: a sign,
And few of us now have the courage to sing
That their whimsies made life a more livable
thing--
We, that are left of the line,
Let us drink to the jesters--in gooseberry wine!
Then here's to the Fools!
Flouting the sages
Through history's pages
And driving the dreary old seers into rages--
The humbugging Magis
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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 Sanitary and Social Lectures by Charles Kingsley: their own denominations, and of baiting for the body in order to
catch the soul. A fair sample of too much of their labour may be
seen anywhere, in those tracts in which the prettiest stories,
with the prettiest binding and pictures, on the most secular--
even, sometimes, scientific--of subjects, end by a few words of
pious exhortation, inserted by a different hand from that which
indites the "carnal" mass of the book. They did not invent the
science, or the art of story-telling, or the woodcutting, or the
plan of getting books up prettily--or, indeed, the notion of
instructing the masses at all; but finding these things in the
hands of "the world," they have "spoiled the Egyptians," and fancy
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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 Main Street by Sinclair Lewis: handkerchiefs in her bodice as padding--oh, the town had
simply roared at her. Of course the rector and she were
got rid of in a few months.
Then there was the mysterious woman with the dyed hair
and penciled eyebrows, who wore tight English dresses, like
basques, who smelled of stale musk, who flirted with the men
and got them to advance money for her expenses in a lawsuit,
who laughed at Vida's reading at a school-entertainment,
and went off owing a hotel-bill and the three hundred dollars
she had borrowed.
Vida insisted that she loved Carol, but with some satisfaction
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