| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Main Street by Sinclair Lewis: "My dear, if you just knew how happy it makes you to come
into abiding grace," then Carol found the humanness behind
the sanguinary and alien theology. Always she perceived that
the churches--Methodist, Baptist, Congregational, Catholic,
all of them--which had seemed so unimportant to the judge's
home in her childhood, so isolated from the city struggle in
St. Paul, were still, in Gopher Prairie, the strongest of the
forces compelling respectability.
This August Sunday she had been tempted by the announcement
that the Reverend Edmund Zitterel would preach on the
topic "America, Face Your Problems!" With the great war,
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Options by O. Henry: "Look out for the copyright laws," said Thacker, flippantly. Who's
Bessie Belleclair, who contributes the essay on the newly completed
water-works plant in Milledgeville?"
"The name, sir," said Colonel Telfair, "is the nom de guerre of Miss
Elvira Simpkins. I have not the honor of knowing the lady; but her
contribution was sent to us by Congressman Brower, of her native
state. Congressman Brower's mother was related to the Polks of
Tennessee.
"Now, see here, Colonel," said Thacker, throwing down the magazine,
"this won't do. You can't successfully run a magazine for one
particular section of the country. You've got to make a universal
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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 Lay Morals by Robert Louis Stevenson: wickedness: he recognises him, perhaps, as a fit type for
mankind of his satanic self, and watches over his effigy as
we might watch over a favourite likeness. As the business
man comes to love the toil, which he only looked upon at
first as a ladder towards other desires and less unnatural
gratifications, so the dumb man has felt the charm of his
trade and fallen captivated before the eyes of sin. It is a
mistake when preachers tell us that vice is hideous and
loathsome; for even vice has her Horsel and her devotees, who
love her for her own sake.
THE GREAT NORTH ROAD
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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 Mansion by Henry van Dyke: be sure.
So he rose from the stone where he was sitting, and came down
through
the short grass and the lavender flowers, toward a passing group
of people.
One of them turned to meet him, and held out his hand. It was an
old man,
under whose white beard and brows John Weightman thought he saw
a suggestion of the face of the village doctor who had cared for
him
years ago, when he was a boy in the country.
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