| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Alcibiades II by Platonic Imitator: ALCIBIADES: How do you mean? Can ignorance possibly be better than
knowledge for any person in any conceivable case?
SOCRATES: So I believe:--you do not think so?
ALCIBIADES: Certainly not.
SOCRATES: And yet surely I may not suppose that you would ever wish to act
towards your mother as they say that Orestes and Alcmeon and others have
done towards their parent.
ALCIBIADES: Good words, Socrates, prithee.
SOCRATES: You ought not to bid him use auspicious words, who says that you
would not be willing to commit so horrible a deed, but rather him who
affirms the contrary, if the act appear to you unfit even to be mentioned.
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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 Message by Honore de Balzac: grotesque element in the very midst of a most terrible tragedy.
The evening that followed was dreary. I was tired. The canon
racked his brains to discover a reason for his niece's tears. The
lady's husband silently digested his dinner; content, apparently,
with the Countess' rather vague explanation, sent through the
maid, putting forward some feminine ailment as her excuse. We all
went early to bed.
As I passed the door of the Countess' room on the way to my
night's lodging, I asked the servant timidly for news of her. She
heard my voice, and would have me come in, and tried to talk, but
in vain--she could not utter a sound. She bent her head, and I
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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 Amazing Interlude by Mary Roberts Rinehart: her own white bedroom; the sun on the red geraniums in the dining-room
window; the voices of happy children wandering home from school.
She got up and went to the window, first blowing out the candle.
Outside, the town lay asleep, and from a gate in the old wall a sentry
with a bugle blew a quiet "All's well." From somewhere near, on top
of the mairie perhaps, where eyes all night searched the sky for danger,
came the same trumpet call of safety for the time, of a little longer
for quiet sleep.
For two days the girl was alone. There was no sign of Henri. She had
nothing to read, and her eyes, watching hour after hour the panorama
that passed through the square under her window, searched vainly for
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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 White Moll by Frank L. Packard: lips there came a little cry, the flashlight dropped from her hand
and smashed to the floor, and she was clinging desperately to the
edge of the escritoire for support. The shop was flooded with light.
Over by the side wall, one hand still on the electric-light switch,
the other holding a leveled revolver, stood a man.
And then the man spoke - with an oath - with curious amazement:
"My God - a woman!"
She did not speak, or stir. It seemed as though not fear, but
horror now, held her powerless to move her limbs. Her first swift
brain-flash had been that it was one of Gypsy Nan's accomplices
here ahead of the appointed time. That would have given her cause,
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