| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from A Woman of No Importance by Oscar Wilde: name. Before my son was born, I implored you to marry me.
LORD ILLINGWORTH. I had no expectations then. And besides,
Rachel, I wasn't much older than you were. I was only twenty-two.
I was twenty-one, I believe, when the whole thing began in your
father's garden.
MRS. ARBUTHNOT. When a man is old enough to do wrong he should be
old enough to do right also.
LORD ILLINGWORTH. My dear Rachel, intellectual generalities are
always interesting, but generalities in morals mean absolutely
nothing. As for saying I left our child to starve, that, of
course, is untrue and silly. My mother offered you six hundred a
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Moll Flanders by Daniel Defoe: am satisfied,' says the minister; 'where is the lady?' 'You
shall see her presently,' says my gentleman.
When he had said thus he comes upstairs, and I was by that
time come out of my room; so he tells me the minister was
below, and that he had talked with him, and that upon showing
him the license, he was free to marry us with all his heart, 'but
he asks to see you'; so he asked if I would let him come up.
''Tis time enough,' said I, 'in the morning, is it not?' 'Why,'
said he, 'my dear, he seemed to scruple whether it was not
some young girl stolen from her parents, and I assured him we
were both of age to command our own consent; and that made
Moll Flanders |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Soul of Man by Oscar Wilde: be told of it by other people, and they often entirely disbelieve
them. What is said by great employers of labour against agitators
is unquestionably true. Agitators are a set of interfering,
meddling people, who come down to some perfectly contented class of
the community, and sow the seeds of discontent amongst them. That
is the reason why agitators are so absolutely necessary. Without
them, in our incomplete state, there would be no advance towards
civilisation. Slavery was put down in America, not in consequence
of any action on the part of the slaves, or even any express desire
on their part that they should be free. It was put down entirely
through the grossly illegal conduct of certain agitators in Boston
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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 Call of the Wild by Jack London: pack. They are afraid of this Ghost Dog, for it has cunning
greater than they, stealing from their camps in fierce winters,
robbing their traps, slaying their dogs, and defying their bravest
hunters.
Nay, the tale grows worse. Hunters there are who fail to return
to the camp, and hunters there have been whom their tribesmen
found with throats slashed cruelly open and with wolf prints about
them in the snow greater than the prints of any wolf. Each fall,
when the Yeehats follow the movement of the moose, there is a
certain valley which they never enter. And women there are who
become sad when the word goes over the fire of how the Evil Spirit
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