| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Tour Through Eastern Counties of England by Daniel Defoe: mast, set up by the Trinity House men of London, whose business is
to lay buoys and set up sea marks for the direction of the sailors;
this is called Shoe Beacon, from the point of land where this sand
begins, which is called Shoeburyness, and that from the town of
Shoebury, which stands by it. From this sand, and on the edge of
Shoebury, before it, or south west of it, all along, to the mouth
of Colchester water, the shore is full of shoals and sands, with
some deep channels between; all which are so full of fish, that not
only the Barking fishing-smacks come hither to fish, but the whole
shore is full of small fisher-boats in very great numbers,
belonging to the villages and towns on the coast, who come in every
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Travels and Researches in South Africa by Dr. David Livingstone: formerly alight@mercury.interpath.net). To assure a high quality text,
the original was typed in (manually) twice and electronically compared.
[Note on text: Italicized words or phrases are CAPITALIZED.
Some obvious errors have been corrected.]
Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa.
Also called, Travels and Researches in South Africa;
or, Journeys and Researches in South Africa.
By David Livingstone [British (Scot) Missionary and Explorer--1813-1873.]
David Livingstone was born in Scotland, received his medical degree
from the University of Glasgow, and was sent to South Africa
by the London Missionary Society. Circumstances led him to try to meet
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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 A Tramp Abroad by Mark Twain: catching changes of tint from the objects it passes.
A soap-bubble is the most beautiful thing, and the
most exquisite, in nature; that lovely phantom fabric
in the sky was suggestive of a soap-bubble split open,
and spread out in the sun. I wonder how much it would take
to buy a soap-bubble, if there was only one in the world?
One could buy a hatful of Koh-i-Noors with the same money,
no doubt.
We made the tramp from Martigny to Argentie`re in eight hours.
We beat all the mules and wagons; we didn't usually do that.
We hired a sort of open baggage-wagon for the trip down
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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 Juana by Honore de Balzac: would consist in faintest tints and delicate shadings which critics
would declare to be effeminate and diffuse. Besides, what man could
rightly approach, unless he bore another heart within his heart, those
solemn and touching elegies which certain women carry with them to
their tomb; melancholies, misunderstood even by those who cause them;
sighs unheeded, devotions unrewarded,--on earth at least,--splendid
silences misconstrued; vengeances withheld, disdained; generosities
perpetually bestowed and wasted; pleasures longed for and denied;
angelic charities secretly accomplished,--in short, all the religions
of womanhood and its inextinguishable love.
Juana knew that life; fate spared her nought. She was wholly a wife,
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