| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Silverado Squatters by Robert Louis Stevenson: was, so long exactly he would stick to the matter in hand;
and the moment she turned her back, or ceased to praise him,
he would stop. His physical strength was wonderful; and to
have a woman stand by and admire his achievements, warmed his
heart like sunshine. Yet he was as cowardly as he was
powerful, and felt no shame in owning to the weakness.
Something was once wanted from the crazy platform over the
shaft, and he at once refused to venture there - "did not
like," as he said, "foolen' round them kind o' places," and
let my wife go instead of him, looking on with a grin.
Vanity, where it rules, is usually more heroic: but Irvine
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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 Witch, et. al by Anton Chekhov: cleared his throat.
"Yes, indeed, your daughters-in-law, Grigory Petrovitch, are a
blessing from God," he said. "Not women, but treasures!"
V
On Friday the 8th of July, Elizarov, nicknamed Crutch, and Lipa
were returning from the village of Kazanskoe, where
they had been to a service on the occasion of a church holiday
in the honour of the Holy Mother of Kazan. A good distance after
them walked Lipa's mother Praskovya, who always fell behind, as
she was ill and short of breath. It was drawing towards evening.
"A-a-a . . ." said Crutch, wondering as he listened to Lipa.
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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 Woodlanders by Thomas Hardy: sure it was you, I did not like to be seen in such a pickle, so I
hid away."
"It was only your speed that saved you! One or both of your legs
would have been broken if you had come at ordinary walking pace."
"Or yours, if you had got here first," said she, beginning to
realize the whole ghastliness of the possibility. "Oh, Edgar,
there has been an Eye watching over us to-night, and we should be
thankful indeed!"
He continued to press his face to hers. "You are mine--mine again
now."
She gently owned that she supposed she was. "I heard what you
The Woodlanders |
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 Pivot of Civilization by Margaret Sanger: crowds.''[3] It would be only the incorrigible optimist who refused to
see the integral relation between this phenomenon and the
indiscriminate breeding by which we recruit our large populations.
The danger of recruiting our numbers from the most ``fertile stocks''
is further emphasized when we recall that in a democracy like that of
the United States every man and woman is permitted a vote in the
government, and that it is the representatives of this grade of
intelligence who may destroy our liberties, and who may thus be the
most far-reaching peril to the future of civilization.
``It is a pathological worship of mere number,'' writes Alleyne
Ireland, ``which has inspired all the efforts--the primary, the direct
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