| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Life on the Mississippi by Mark Twain: will serve those we are going to fight.' The leader answered,
'Slow, slow, Mudjikewis, the one I lead you to is not to be thought
of so lightly.' Again he fell back and thought to himself:
'What! what! who can this be he is leading us to?'
He felt fearful and was silent. Day after day they traveled on,
till they came to an extensive plain, on the borders of which
human bones were bleaching in the sun. The leader spoke:
'They are the bones of those who have gone before us.
None has ever yet returned to tell the sad tale of their fate.'
Again Mudjikewis became restless, and, running forward,
gave the accustomed yell. Advancing to a large rock which
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from A Lover's Complaint by William Shakespeare: My woeful self, that did in freedom stand,
And was my own fee-simple, (not in part,)
What with his heart in youth, and youth in art,
Threw my affections in his charmed power,
Reserv'd the stalk, and gave him all my flower.
'Yet did I not, as some my equals did,
Demand of him, nor being desired yielded;
Finding myself in honour so forbid,
With safest distance I mine honour shielded:
Experience for me many bulwarks builded
Of proofs new-bleeding, which remain'd the foil
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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 New Machiavelli by H. G. Wells: Again she studied me. She turned a little awkwardly to her tea
things, and poured needless water from the silver kettle into the
teapot. Then she sat still for some moments looking at the equipage
with expressionless eyes. I saw her hand upon the edge of the table
tremble slightly. I watched her closely. A vague uneasiness
possessed me. What might she not know or guess?
She spoke at last with an effort. "I wish you were in Parliament
again," she said. "Life doesn't give you events enough."
"If I was in Parliament again, I should be on the Conservative
side."
"I know," she said, and was still more thoughtful.
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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 Catherine de Medici by Honore de Balzac: his head; but no sooner had Cardinal Granvelle made him aware of the
extent of the wound than he abdicated. The Guises had but one scheme,
--that of annihilating heresy at a single blow. This blow they were
now to attempt, for the first time, to strike at Amboise; failing
there they tried it again, twelve years later, at the Saint-
Bartholomew,--on the latter occasion in conjunction with Catherine de'
Medici, enlightened by that time by the flames of a twelve years' war,
enlightened above all by the significant word "republic," uttered
later and printed by the writers of the Reformation, but already
foreseen (as we have said before) by Lecamus, that type of the
Parisian bourgeoisie.
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