| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Coxon Fund by Henry James: do so most effectually by leaving England. I wanted to forget
Frank Saltram--that was all. I didn't want to do anything in the
world to him but that. Indignation had withered on the stalk, and
I felt that one could pity him as much as one ought only by never
thinking of him again. It wasn't for anything he had done to me;
it was for what he had done to the Mulvilles. Adelaide cried about
it for a week, and her husband, profiting by the example so
signally given him of the fatal effect of a want of character, left
the letter, the drop too much, unanswered. The letter, an
incredible one, addressed by Saltram to Wimbledon during a stay
with the Pudneys at Ramsgate, was the central feature of the
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Early Short Fiction of Edith Wharton by Edith Wharton: "Well," she exclaimed, flushing again, "what if I do? What does
it matter to us?"
Westall rose from his chair. He was excessively pale, and stood
before his wife with something of the formality of a stranger.
"It matters to me," he said in a low voice, "because I do NOT
repudiate it."
"Well--?"
"And because I had intended to invoke it as"--
He paused and drew his breath deeply. She sat silent, almost
deafened by her heart-beats.
--"as a complete justification of the course I am about to take."
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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 Aeneid by Virgil: "O mother, do not by your tears prepare
Such boding omens, and prejudge the war.
Resolv'd on fight, I am no longer free
To shun my death, if Heav'n my death decree."
Then turning to the herald, thus pursues:
"Go, greet the Trojan with ungrateful news;
Denounce from me, that, when to-morrow's light
Shall gild the heav'ns, he need not urge the fight;
The Trojan and Rutulian troops no more
Shall dye, with mutual blood, the Latian shore:
Our single swords the quarrel shall decide,
Aeneid |
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 Maid Marian by Thomas Love Peacock: "I thank thee for that, in God's name," said Robin, "as if thy good service
had been to myself."
"And here," said the knight, "is thy four hundred pound;
and my men have brought thee an hundred bows and as many
well-furnished quivers; which I beseech thee to receive
and to use as a poor token of my grateful kindness to thee:
for me and my wife and children didst thou redeem from beggary."
"Thy bows and arrows," said Robin, "will I joyfully receive:
but of thy money, not a penny. It is paid already.
My Lady, who was thy security, hath sent it me for thee."
Sir William pressed, but Robin was inflexible.
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