| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Prince Otto by Robert Louis Stevenson: weaknesses; the singing chambermaid of the stage, tricked out in
man's apparel, and mounted on a circus horse. I have seen this poor
phantom of a prince riding out alone or with a few huntsmen,
disregarded by all, and I have been even grieved for the bearer of
so futile and melancholy an existence. The last Merovingians may
have looked not otherwise.
The Princess Amalia Seraphina, a daughter of the Grand-Ducal house
of Toggenburg-Tannhauser, would be equally inconsiderable if she
were not a cutting instrument in the hands of an ambitious man. She
is much younger than the Prince, a girl of two-and-twenty, sick with
vanity, superficially clever, and fundamentally a fool. She has 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 The Art of Writing by Robert Louis Stevenson: book; and to read a novel that was conceived with any force
is to multiply experience and to exercise the sympathies.
Every article, every piece of verse, every essay, every
ENTRE-FILET, is destined to pass, however swiftly, through
the minds of some portion of the public, and to colour,
however transiently, their thoughts. When any subject falls
to be discussed, some scribbler on a paper has the invaluable
opportunity of beginning its discussion in a dignified and
human spirit; and if there were enough who did so in our
public press, neither the public nor the Parliament would
find it in their minds to drop to meaner thoughts. The
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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 Heroes by Charles Kingsley: good. And there are heroes in our days also, who do noble
deeds, but not for gold. Our discoverers did not go to make
themselves rich when they sailed out one after another into
the dreary frozen seas; nor did the ladies who went out last
year to drudge in the hospitals of the East, making
themselves poor, that they might be rich in noble works. And
young men, too, whom you know, children, and some of them of
your own kin, did they say to themselves, 'How much money
shall I earn?' when they went out to the war, leaving wealth,
and comfort, and a pleasant home, and all that money can
give, to face hunger and thirst, and wounds and death, that
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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 Summer by Edith Wharton: Mr. Royall's was the only house where the young man
could have been offered a decent hospitality. There
had been nothing, therefore, in the outward course of
events to raise in Charity's breast the hopes with
which it trembled. But beneath the visible incidents
resulting from Lucius Harney's arrival there ran an
undercurrent as mysterious and potent as the influence
that makes the forest break into leaf before the ice is
off the pools.
The business on which Harney had come was authentic;
Charity had seen the letter from a New York publisher
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