| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Dynamiter by Robert Louis Stevenson and Fanny Van De Grift Stevenson: and the diamonds of Golconda? No, child, that man, for all
his yacht and title, that man must fear and must obey me.
To-night, then, as soon as it is dark, we must take our way
through the swamp by the path which I shall presently show
you; thence, across the highlands of the isle, a track is
blazed, which shall conduct us to the haven on the north; and
close by the yacht is riding. Should my pursuers come before
the hour at which I look to see them, they will still arrive
too late; a trusty man attends on the mainland; as soon as
they appear, we shall behold, if it be dark, the redness of a
fire, if it be day, a pillar of smoke, on the opposing
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Dawn O'Hara, The Girl Who Laughed by Edna Ferber: a city where epochs are counted by hours.
Now, after two weeks of Norah's loving care, I was
back in the pretty little city by the lake. I had come
to say farewell to all those who had filled my life so
completely in that year. My days of newspaper work were
over. The autumn and winter would be spent at Norah's,
occupied with hours of delightful, congenial work, for
the second book was to be written in the quiet peace of
my own little Michigan town. Von Gerhard was to take his
deferred trip to Vienna in the spring, and I knew that I
was to go with him. The thought filled my heart with a
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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 King of the Golden River by John Ruskin: brothers, it was twenty times worse for him, who was neither so
strong nor so practiced on the mountains. He had several very bad
falls, lost his basket and bread, and was very much frightened at
the strange noises under the ice. He lay a long time to rest on the
grass, after he had got over, and began to climb the hill just in
the hottest part of the clay. When he had climbed for an hour, he
got dreadfully thirsty and was going to drink like his brothers,
when he saw an old man coming down the path above him, looking very
feeble and leaning on a staff. "Why son," said the old man, "I
am faint with thirst; give me some of that water." Then Gluck
looked at him, and when he saw that he was pale and weary, he gave
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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 Hellenica by Xenophon: [11] For a treaty between Athens and Eretria, B.C. 395, see Hicks, 66;
and below, "Hell." IV. iii. 15; Hicks, 68, 69; Diod. xiv. 82.
[12] See above, "Hell." III. v. 3.
[13] See below, "Hell." IV. vi. 1; ib. vii. 1; VI. v. 23.
Such was the strength of the two armies. The Boeotians, as long as
they occupied the left wing, showed no anxiety to join battle, but
after a rearrangement which gave them the right, placing the Athenians
opposite the Lacedaemonians, and themselves opposite the Achaeans, at
once, we are told,[14] the victims proved favourable, and the order
was passed along the lines to prepare for immediate action. The
Boeotians, in the first place, abandoning the rule of sixteen deep,
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