| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Arizona Nights by Stewart Edward White:
Schwartz threw away a gold piece as another man would take a
stimulant. Gradually, without really thinking about it, I came
to see this, and then went on to sabe why Denton picked up the
coins; and a great admiration for Denton's cleverness seeped
through me like water through the sand. He was saving the coins
to keep Schwartz going. When the last coin went, Schwartz would
give out. It all sounds queer now, but it seemed all right
then--and it WAS all right, too.
So we walked on the beach, losing entire track of time. And
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Scenes from a Courtesan's Life by Honore de Balzac: hand----"
"Poor old boy!" said Fil-de-Soie.
"Old Scratch has cut me!" cried Jacques Collin, tearing himself free
from his supporters, and drawing himself up with a fierce look. "There
comes a time when the world is too many for us! The beaks gobble us up
at last."
The governor of the Conciergerie, informed of the Spanish priest's
weak state, came himself to the prison-yard to observe him; he made
him sit down on a chair in the sun, studying him with the keen acumen
which increases day by day in the practise of such functions, though
hidden under an appearance of indifference.
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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 A Legend of Montrose by Walter Scott: fast and so very long.
"The former quality," he said, "he had acquired, while he filled
a place at the bursar's table at the Mareschal-College of
Aberdeen; when," said he; "if you did not move your jaws as fast
as a pair of castanets, you were very unlikely to get any thing
to put between them. And as for the quantity of my food, be it
known to this honourable company," continued the Captain, "that
it's the duty of every commander of a fortress, on all occasions
which offer, to secure as much munition and vivers as their
magazines can possibly hold, not knowing when they may have to
sustain a siege or a blockade. Upon which principle, gentlemen,"
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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 Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte by Karl Marx: industrial bourgeoisie; the middle class; the small traders' class; the
army; the slums, organized as Guarde Mobile; the intellectual
celebrities, the parsons' class, and the rural population. On the side
of the Parisian proletariat stood none but itself. Over 3,000
insurgents were massacred, after the victory 15,000 were transported
without trial. With this defeat, the proletariat steps to the
background on the revolutionary stage. It always seeks to crowd
forward, so soon as the movement seems to acquire new impetus, but with
ever weaker effort and ever smaller results; So soon as any of the above
lying layers of society gets into revolutionary fermentation, it enters
into alliance therewith and thus shares all the defeats which the
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