| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Street of Seven Stars by Mary Roberts Rinehart: Up and up, past the Weinzettelwand and the Station Breitenstein,
across the highest viaduct, the Kalte Rinne, and so at last to
Semmering.
The glow had died at last for Peter. He did not like his errand,
was very vague, indeed, as to just what that errand might be. He
was stiff and rather cold. Also he thought the cat might stifle
in the oilcloth, but the old woman too clearly distrusted him to
make it possible to interfere. Anyhow, he did not know the German
for either cat or oilcloth.
He had wired Stewart; but the latter was not at the station. This
made him vaguely uneasy, he hardly knew why. He did not know
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Venus and Adonis by William Shakespeare: And being set, I'll smother thee with kisses:
'And yet not cloy thy lips with loath'd satiety,
But rather famish them amid their plenty, 20
Making them red and pale with fresh variety;
Ten kisses short as one, one long as twenty:
A summer's day will seem an hour but short,
Being wasted in such time-beguiling sport.' 24
With this she seizeth on his sweating palm,
The precedent of pith and livelihood,
And, trembling in her passion, calls it balm,
Earth's sovereign salve to do a goddess good: 28
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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 Roads of Destiny by O. Henry: the east. Deflected by hill or arroyo or impractical spinous brakes,
he quickly flowed again into the current, charted by his unerring
instinct. At last, upon the side of a gentle rise, he suddenly
subsided to a complacent walk. A stone's cast away stood a little mott
of coma trees; beneath it a /jacal/ such as the Mexicans erect--a one-
room house of upright poles daubed with clay and roofed with grass or
tule reeds. An experienced eye would have estimated the spot as the
headquarters of a small sheep ranch. In the moonlight the ground in
the nearby corral showed pulverized to a level smoothness by the hoofs
of the sheep. Everywhere was carelessly distributed the paraphernalia
of the place--ropes, bridles, saddles, sheep pelts, wool sacks, feed
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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 Dust by Mr. And Mrs. Haldeman-Julius: this ecstasy can last. Her little hand against my breast--it is
so warm and soft--like a flower's curling petal, as delicate and
as beautiful as a butterfly's wing. I never knew until now what
life really meant." As Rose reread the throbbing lines and
pictured the eager-eyed young mother, her own sweet face glowed
with reflected joy and with the knowledge that this ecstasy, this
deeper understanding could come to her, too--Martin, he was
vigorous, so worthy of being the father of her children. He would
love them, of course, and provide for them better than any other
man she knew. Had not Norah married a plain farmer who was only a
tenant? The new little Rose's father was not to be compared to
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