| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Another Study of Woman by Honore de Balzac: to-day--the indirect offspring of his legislation."
"It was logic, handled as a hammer by boys just out of school and by
obscure journalists, which demolished the splendors of the social
state," said the Comte de Vandenesse. "In these days every rogue who
can hold his head straight in his collar, cover his manly bosom with
half an ell of satin by way of a cuirass, display a brow where
apocryphal genius gleams under curling locks, and strut in a pair of
patent-leather pumps graced by silk socks which cost six francs,
screws his eye-glass into one of his eye-sockets by puckering up his
cheek, and whether he be an attorney's clerk, a contractor's son, or a
banker's bastard, he stares impertinently at the prettiest duchess,
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Sanitary and Social Lectures by Charles Kingsley: body, and, perhaps, never had--has given them an immortal soul,
which can speak to the immortal souls of all generations to come?
What but this, that in them--dim it may be and undeveloped, but
still there--lies the divine idea of self-sacrifice as the
perfection of heroism, of self-sacrifice, as the highest duty and
the highest joy of him who claims a kindred with the gods?
Let us say, then, that true heroism must involve self-sacrifice.
Those stories certainly involve it, whether ancient or modern,
which the hearts, not of philosophers merely, or poets, but of the
poorest and the most ignorant, have accepted instinctively as the
highest form of moral beauty--the highest form, and yet one
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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 Jungle by Upton Sinclair: they were in the days of the cave men!
Ona was now making about thirty dollars a month, and Stanislovas
about thirteen. To add to this there was the board of Jonas and
Marija, about forty-five dollars. Deducting from this the rent,
interest, and installments on the furniture, they had left sixty
dollars, and deducting the coal, they had fifty. They did without
everything that human beings could do without; they went in old and
ragged clothing, that left them at the mercy of the cold, and when the
children's shoes wore out, they tied them up with string. Half invalid
as she was, Ona would do herself harm by walking in the rain and cold
when she ought to have ridden; they bought literally nothing but
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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 Wheels of Chance by H. G. Wells: brighter for the tears that swam in them. The man was thirty
three or four, fair, with a longish nose overhanging his sandy
flaxen moustache, pale blue eyes, and a head that struck out
above and behind. He stood with his feet wide apart, his hand on
his hip, in an attitude that was equally suggestive of defiance
and aggression. They had watched Hoopdriver out of sight. The
unexpected interruption had stopped the flood of her tears. He
tugged his abundant moustache and regarded her calmly. She stood
with face averted, obstinately resolved not to speak first. "Your
behaviour," he said at last, "makes you conspicuous."
She turned upon him, her eyes and cheeks glowing, her hands
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