| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from House of Mirth by Edith Wharton: arranged with precision, and her clothes looked excessively new
and yet slightly old-fashioned. They were always black and
tightly fitting, with an expensive glitter: she was the kind of
woman who wore jet at breakfast. Lily had never seen her when she
was not cuirassed in shining black, with small tight boots, and
an air of being packed and ready to start; yet she never started.
She looked about the drawing-room with an expression of minute
scrutiny. "I saw a streak of light under one of the blinds as I
drove up: it's extraordinary that I can never teach that woman to
draw them down evenly."
Having corrected the irregularity, she seated herself on one of
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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 Human Drift by Jack London: because they are pressed remorselessly against subsistence. It is
inevitable that China, sooner or later, like Japan, will learn and
put into application our own superior food-getting efficiency.
And when that time comes, it is likewise inevitable that her
population will increase by unguessed millions until it again
reaches the saturation point. And then, inoculated with Western
ideas, may she not, like Japan, take sword in hand and start forth
colossally on a drift of her own for more room? This is another
reputed bogie--the Yellow Peril; yet the men of China are only
men, like any other race of men, and all men, down all history,
have drifted hungrily, here, there and everywhere over the planet,
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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 Tono Bungay by H. G. Wells: old place. Quite an old place." As though I had treated it as
new and he meant to be very patient but very convincing. Then
we hung up in a distinct pause, and my aunt rescued me.
"George," she said in a confidential undertone, "keep the pot
a-boiling." And then audibly, "I say, will you both old trot
about with tea a bit?"
"Only too delighted to TROT for you, Mrs. Ponderevo," said the
clergyman, becoming fearfully expert and in his elements; "only
too delighted."
I found we were near a rustic table, and that the housemaid was
behind us in a suitable position to catch us on the rebound with
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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 Soul of the Far East by Percival Lowell: unhesitatingly divorces his wife for having dared to poke fun, in
the shape of bodkins, at some wooden effigies of his parents which
he had had set up in the house for daily devotional contemplation.
Finally another paragon actually sells himself in perpetuity as a
slave that he may thus procure the wherewithal to bury with due
honor his anything but worthy progenitor, who had first cheated his
neighbors and then squandered his ill-gotten gains in riotous living.
Of these tales, as of certain questionable novels in a slightly
different line, the eventual moral is considered quite competent to
redeem the general immorality of the plot.
Along such a curriculum the youthful Chinaman is made to run.
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