| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from De Profundis by Oscar Wilde: own sake that he says so, and because love is more beautiful than
hate. In his own entreaty to the young man, 'Sell all that thou
hast and give to the poor,' it is not of the state of the poor that
he is thinking but of the soul of the young man, the soul that
wealth was marring. In his view of life he is one with the artist
who knows that by the inevitable law of self-perfection, the poet
must sing, and the sculptor think in bronze, and the painter make
the world a mirror for his moods, as surely and as certainly as the
hawthorn must blossom in spring, and the corn turn to gold at
harvest-time, and the moon in her ordered wanderings change from
shield to sickle, and from sickle to shield.
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Danny's Own Story by Don Marquis: "Are you going to it?" says I.
"I mout," says Hank, "and then agin I moutn't.
I don't see as it's no consarns of yourn, nohow."
I knowed he was going, though. Hank, he never
missed a circus.
"Well," I says, "they wasn't no harm to ast,
was they?"
"Well, you've asted, ain't you?" says Hank.
"Well, then," says I, "I'd like to go to that there
circus myself."
"They ain't no use in me saying fur you not to
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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 Records of a Family of Engineers by Robert Louis Stevenson: board of the floating light, but happily no instance occurred
for putting it in practice. The hearth or fireplace of the
cook-house was built of brick in as secure a manner as
possible, to prevent accident from fire; but some of the
plaster-work had shaken loose, from its damp state and the
tremulous motion of the beacon in stormy weather. The writer
next ascended to the floor which was occupied by the cabins of
himself and his assistants, which were in tolerably good
order, having only a damp and musty smell. The barrack for
the artificers, over all, was next visited; it had now a very
dreary and deserted appearance when its former thronged state
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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 Crisis in Russia by Arthur Ransome: employments that tend to have the opposite effect. If this
continues unchecked, it will make impossible the
regeneration of Russian industry, and will result in the
increasing independence of the villages, which will tend to
become entirely self-supporting communities, tilling the
ground in a less and less efficient manner, with ruder tools,
with less and less incentive to produce more than is wanted
for the needs of the village itself. Russia, in these
circumstances, may sink into something very like barbarism,
for with the decay of the economic importance of the towns
would decay also their authority, and free-booting on a small
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