| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Profits of Religion by Upton Sinclair: Episcopal Church of America. This creed of the ancient
Alexandrian lays down the truth with grim and menacing
precision--forty-four paragraphs of metaphysical minutiae,
closing with the final doom: "This is the Catholick faith: which
except a man believe faithfully, he cannot be saved."
You see, the founders of this august institution were not content
with cultured complacency; what they believed they believed
really, with their whole hearts, and they were ready to act upon
it, even if it meant burning their own at the stake. Also, they
knew the ceaseless impulse of the mind to grow; the terrible
temptation which confronts each new generation to believe that
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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 Children of the Night by Edwin Arlington Robinson: Like Titans; but the world is growing young,
And we, the fools of time, are growing with it: --
We do not fight to-day, we only die;
We are too proud of death, and too ashamed
Of God, to know enough to be alive.
VII
There is one battle-field whereon we fall
Triumphant and unconquered; but, alas!
We are too fleshly fearful of ourselves
To fight there till our days are whirled and blurred
By sorrow, and the ministering wheels
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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 Catriona by Robert Louis Stevenson: great while back) with a certain Mr. David Balfour. Should not these
make a good match? Her first intromission in politics - but I must not
tell you that story, the authorities have decided you are to hear it
otherwise and from a livelier narrator. This new example is more
serious, however; and I am afraid I must alarm you with the
intelligence that she is now in prison."
I cried out.
"Yes," said he, "the little lady is in prison. But I would not have
you to despair. Unless you (with your friends and memorials) shall
procure my downfall, she is to suffer nothing."
"But what has she done? What is her offence?" I cried.
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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 Sportsman by Xenophon: smiling, as it were to greet the trail; see how they let their ears
drop, how they keep moving their eyes to and fro quickly, flourishing
their sterns.[14] Forwards they should go with many a circle towards
the hare's form,[15] steadily guided by the line, all together. When
they are close to the hare itself, they will make the fact plain to
the huntsman by the quickened pace at which they run, as if they would
let him know by their fury, by the motion of head and eyes, by rapid
changes of gait and gesture,[16] now casting a glance back and now
fixing their gaze steadily forward to the creature's hiding-place,[17]
by twistings and turnings of the body, flinging themselves backwards,
forwards, and sideways, and lastly, by the genuine exaltation of
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