| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from A Prince of Bohemia by Honore de Balzac: held the bourgeoise, the nobody, in utter horror; nothing would
satisfy him but a woman with a title. Claudine, it was true, had made
progress; she had learned to dress as well as the best-dressed woman
of the Faubourg Saint-Germain; she had freed her bearing of the
unhallowed traces; she walked with a chastened, inimitable grace; but
this was not enough. This praise of her enabled Claudine to swallow
down the rest.
"But one day La Palferine said, 'If you wish to be the mistress of one
La Palferine, poor, penniless, and without prospects as he is, you
ought at least to represent him worthily. You should have a carriage
and liveried servants and a title. Give me all the gratifications of
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Lay Morals by Robert Louis Stevenson: caresses. Thus he goes on his way, stumbling among delights
and agonies.
Matter is a far-fetched theory, and materialism is without a
root in man. To him everything is important in the degree to
which it moves him. The telegraph wires and posts, the
electricity speeding from clerk to clerk, the clerks, the
glad or sorrowful import of the message, and the paper on
which it is finally brought to him at home, are all equally
facts, all equally exist for man. A word or a thought can
wound him as acutely as a knife of steel. If he thinks he is
loved, he will rise up and glory to himself, although he be
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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 Old Indian Legends by Zitkala-Sa: him, saying: "Do not come back without your big brother."
Thus the wild boy with the long, loose hair sits every day on
a marshy island hid among the tall reeds. But he is not alone.
Always at his feet hops a little toad brother. One day an Indian
hunter, wading in the deep waters, spied the boy. He had heard
of the baby stolen long ago.
"This is he!" murmured the hunter to himself as he ran to his
wigwam. "I saw among the tall reeds a black-haired boy at play!"
shouted he to the people.
At once the unhappy father and mother cried out, "'Tis he, our
boy!" Quickly he led them to the lake. Peeping through the wild
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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 Summer by Edith Wharton: speak blasphemy...."
But she had jerked her arm out of his hold, and was
running up the branch road, trembling with the fear of
meeting a familiar face. Presently she was out of
sight of the village, and climbing into the heart of
the forest. She could not hope to do the fifteen miles
to the Mountain that afternoon; but she knew of a place
half-way to Hamblin where she could sleep, and where no
one would think of looking for her. It was a little
deserted house on a slope in one of the lonely rifts of
the hills. She had seen it once, years before, when
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