| 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: greatest ships in the navy, seeing they may be built and brought up
again laden, within a mile and half of the town?
But the neighbourhood of London, which sucks the vitals of trade in
this island to itself, is the chief reason of any decay of business
in this place; and I shall, in the course of these observations,
hint at it, where many good seaports and large towns, though
farther off than Ipswich, and as well fitted for commerce, are yet
swallowed up by the immense indraft of trade to the City of London;
and more decayed beyond all comparison than Ipswich is supposed to
be: as Southampton, Weymouth, Dartmouth, and several others which I
shall speak to in their order; and if it be otherwise at this time,
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Night and Day by Virginia Woolf: obvious employment.
"If anybody says anything, I shall say that I'm looking at the river,"
she thought, for in her slavery to her family traditions, she was
ready to pay for her transgression with some plausible falsehood. She
pushed aside the blind and looked at the river. But it was a dark
night and the water was barely visible. Cabs were passing, and couples
were loitering slowly along the road, keeping as close to the railings
as possible, though the trees had as yet no leaves to cast shadow upon
their embraces. Katharine, thus withdrawn, felt her loneliness. The
evening had been one of pain, offering her, minute after minute,
plainer proof that things would fall out as she had foreseen. She had
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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 Reef by Edith Wharton: and suggestion of a world in which such things could be; and
at the same time she was tormented by the desire to know
more, to understand better, to feel herself less ignorant
and inexpert in matters which made so much of the stuff of
human experience. What did he mean by "a moment's folly, a
flash of madness"? How did people enter on such adventures,
how pass out of them without more visible traces of their
havoc? Her imagination recoiled from the vision of a sudden
debasing familiarity: it seemed to her that her thoughts
would never again be pure...
"I swear to you," she heard Darrow saying, "it was simply
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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 Vicar of Tours by Honore de Balzac: promotion force me to do base things," thought she.)
The priest remained impassible, but his calm exterior was an
indication of violent emotion. Monsieur Bourbonne alone had fathomed
the secret of that apparent tranquillity. The priest had triumphed!
"Why did you take upon yourself to bring that relinquishment," he
asked, with a feeling analogous to that which impels a woman to fish
for compliments.
"I could not avoid a feeling of compassion. Birotteau, whose feeble
nature must be well known to you, entreated me to see Madaemoiselle
Gamard and to obtain as the price of his renunciation--"
The priest frowned.
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