| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Familiar Studies of Men and Books by Robert Louis Stevenson: trumpet, this current allusion to the fall of Jericho, that
alone distinguishes his bitter and hasty production, he was
probably right, according to all artistic canon, thus to
support and accentuate in conclusion the sustained metaphor
of a hostile proclamation. It is curious, by the way, to
note how favourite an image the trumpet was with the
Reformer. He returns to it again and again; it is the Alpha
and Omega of his rhetoric; it is to him what a ship is to the
stage sailor; and one would almost fancy he had begun the
world as a trumpeter's apprentice. The partiality is surely
characteristic. All his life long he was blowing summonses
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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 Faith of Men by Jack London: He refused "squaw food," and a little later bearded his son-in-law
in the store where the trading was done. Having learned, he said,
that his daughter was such a jewel, he had come for more blankets,
more tobacco, and more guns--especially more guns. He had
certainly been cheated in her price, he held, and he had come for
justice. But the Factor had neither blankets nor justice to spare.
Whereupon he was informed that Snettishane had seen the missionary
at Three Forks, who had notified him that such marriages were not
made in heaven, and that it was his father's duty to demand his
daughter back.
"I am good Christian man now," Snettishane concluded. "I want my
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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 Weir of Hermiston by Robert Louis Stevenson: upon the Bench. On the side of Jean, there was perhaps some fascination
of curiosity as to this unknown male animal that approached her with the
roughness of a ploughman and the APLOMB of an advocate. Being so
trenchantly opposed to all she knew, loved, or understood, he may well
have seemed to her the extreme, if scarcely the ideal, of his sex. And
besides, he was an ill man to refuse. A little over forty at the period
of his marriage, he looked already older, and to the force of manhood
added the senatorial dignity of years; it was, perhaps, with an
unreverend awe, but he was awful. The Bench, the Bar, and the most
experienced and reluctant witness, bowed to his authority - and why not
Jeannie Rutherford?
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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 Letters from England by Elizabeth Davis Bancroft: de Walden dying without a son, his title also passed into another
family, but his estate went to his nephew, Lord Braybrooke, the
father of the present Lord. Lady Braybrooke is the daughter of the
Marquis of Cornwallis, and granddaughter of our American Lord
Cornwallis.
The house is of the Elizabethan period and is one of the best
preserved specimens of that style, but of its vast extent and
magnificence I can give you no idea. We arrived about five o'clock,
and were ushered through an immense hall of carved oak hung with
banners up a fine staircase to the grand saloon, where we were
received by the host and hostess. Now of this grand saloon I must
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