| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Boys' Life of Abraham Lincoln by Helen Nicolay: to this time the greater part of his life had been spent in the
open air, and that his still growing muscles must have eagerly
welcomed tasks like this, which gave him once more the exercise
that measuring calico and weighing out groceries failed to
supply. Young Lincoln's bodily vigor stood him in good stead in
many ways. In frontier life strength and athletic skill served as
well for popular amusement as for prosaic toil, and at times,
indeed, they were needed for personal defence. Every community
had its champion wrestler, a man of considerable local
importance, in whose success the neighbors took a becoming
interest. There was, not far from New Salem, a settlement called
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from A Passion in the Desert by Honore de Balzac: "Ah, but when she's really hungry!" thought the Frenchman. In spite of
the shudder this thought caused him, the soldier began to measure
curiously the proportions of the panther, certainly one of the most
splendid specimens of its race. She was three feet high and four feet
long without counting her tail; this powerful weapon, rounded like a
cudgel, was nearly three feet long. The head, large as that of a
lioness, was distinguished by a rare expression of refinement. The
cold cruelty of a tiger was dominant, it was true, but there was also
a vague resemblance to the face of a sensual woman. Indeed, the face
of this solitary queen had something of the gaiety of a drunken Nero:
she had satiated herself with blood, and she wanted to play.
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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 The Crisis in Russia by Arthur Ransome: her. By the blockade I do not mean merely the childish
stupidity committed by ourselves, but the blockade, steadily
increasing in strictness, which began in August, 1914,
and has been unnecessarily prolonged by our stupidity. The
war, even while for Russia it was not nominally a blockade,
was so actually. The use of tonnage was perforce restricted
to the transport of the necessaries of war, and these were
narrowly defined as shells, guns and so on, things which do
not tend to improve a country economically, but rather the
reverse. The imports from Sweden through Finland were no
sort of make-weight for the loss of Poland and Germany.
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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 Menexenus by Plato: this your first and last and constant and all-absorbing aim, to exceed, if
possible, not only us but all your ancestors in virtue; and know that to
excel you in virtue only brings us shame, but that to be excelled by you is
a source of happiness to us. And we shall most likely be defeated, and you
will most likely be victors in the contest, if you learn so to order your
lives as not to abuse or waste the reputation of your ancestors, knowing
that to a man who has any self-respect, nothing is more dishonourable than
to be honoured, not for his own sake, but on account of the reputation of
his ancestors. The honour of parents is a fair and noble treasure to their
posterity, but to have the use of a treasure of wealth and honour, and to
leave none to your successors, because you have neither money nor
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