| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Gentle Grafter by O. Henry: "Now, there were three saloons in Bird City, though neither Andy nor
me drank. But we could see the townspeople making a triangular
procession from one to another all day and half the night. Everybody
seemed to know what to do with as much money as they had.
"The third day of the rain it slacked up awhile in the afternoon, so
me and Andy walked out to the edge of town to view the mudscape. Bird
City was built between the Rio Grande and a deep wide arroyo that used
to be the old bed of the river. The bank between the stream and its
old bed was cracking and giving away, when we saw it, on account of
the high water caused by the rain. Andy looks at it a long time. That
man's intellects was never idle. And then he unfolds to me a
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson: with him.
I told him as far in my affairs as I judged wise; as far, that
is, as they were none of Alan's; and gave Balachulish as the
place I was travelling to, to meet a friend; for I thought
Aucharn, or even Duror, would be too particular, and might put
him on the scent.
On his part, he told me much of his work and the people he worked
among, the hiding priests and Jacobites, the Disarming Act, the
dress, and many other curiosities of the time and place. He
seemed moderate; blaming Parliament in several points, and
especially because they had framed the Act more severely against
Kidnapped |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Bureaucracy by Honore de Balzac: government, which was, inevitably, the friend of all mediocrities, the
lover of authentic documents and accounts, and as meddlesome as an old
tradeswoman. Delighted to see the various ministers constantly
struggling against the four hundred petty minds of the Elected of the
Chamber, with their ten or a dozen ambitious and dishonest leaders,
the Civil Service officials hastened to make themselves essential to
the warfare by adding their quota of assistance under the form of
written action; they created a power of inertia and named it "Report."
Let us explain the Report.
When the kings of France took to themselves ministers, which first
happened under Louis XV., they made them render reports on all
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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 Passionate Pilgrim by William Shakespeare: She bade love last, and yet she fell a-turning.
Was this a lover, or a lecher whether?
Bad in the best, though excellent in neither.
VIII.
If music and sweet poetry agree,
As they must needs, the sister and the brother,
Then must the love be great 'twixt thee and me,
Because thou lovest the one, and I the other.
Dowland to thee is dear, whose heavenly touch
Upon the lute doth ravish human sense;
Spenser to me, whose deep conceit is such
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