| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Manon Lescaut by Abbe Prevost: young man, from whom all that he most loved was ravished, you may
think me perhaps not so culpable in seeking the gratification of
an innocent revenge; or at least, you may consider me
sufficiently punished, by the exposure and degradation I have
just now endured. Neither pains nor imprisonment will be
requisite to make me tell you where your son now is. He is in
perfect safety. It was never my intention to injure him, nor to
give you just cause for offence. I am ready to let you know the
place where he is safely passing the night, if, in return, you
will set us at liberty.'
"The old tiger, far from being softened by my prayer, turned his
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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 Complete Angler by Izaak Walton: necessary for you to know, and to be mindful and careful of, that if the
Pike or Perch do breed in that river, they will be sure to bite first, and
must first be taken. And for the most part they are very large; and will
repair to your ground-bait, not that they will eat of it, but will feed and
sport themselves among the young fry that gather about and hover over
the bait.
The way to discern the Pike and to take him, it you mistrust your Bream
hook, for I have taken a Pike a yard long several times at my Bream
hooks, and sometimes he hath had the luck to share my line, may be
thus:
Take a small Bleak, or Roach, or Gudgeon, and bait it; and set it, alive,
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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: his half-worn blanket upon Inyan's cold shoulders. Then Iktomi,
happy with the smile of the sunset sky, followed a footpath leading
toward a thicketed ravine. He had not gone many paces into the
shrubbery when before him lay a freshly wounded deer!
"This is the answer from the red western sky!" cried Iktomi
with hands uplifted.
Slipping a long thin blade from out his belt, he cut large
chunks of choice meat. Sharpening some willow sticks, he planted
them around a wood-pile he had ready to kindle. On these stakes he
meant to roast the venison.
While he was rubbing briskly two long sticks to start a fire,
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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 Options by O. Henry: from right to left. Her favorites were Mendelssohn, and Moody and
Sankey. By request she always wound up with Sweet Violets and When
the Leaves Begin to Turn.
When we left at ten o'clock the three of us would go down to Jacks'
little wooden station and sit on the platform, swinging our feet and
trying to pump one another for dews as to which way Miss Ileen's
inclinations seemed to lean. That is the way of rivals--they do not
avoid and glower at one another; they convene and converse and
construe--striving by the art politic to estimate the strength of the
enemy.
One day there came a dark horse to Paloma, a young lawyer who at once
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