| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Wyoming by William MacLeod Raine: promptly on suspicion?" he retaliated with a smile.
"No, it wasn't. But--" She flushed with a divine shyness. "But I
loved you all the time, even when they said you were a villain."
"Even while y'u believed me one?"
"I didn't. I never would believe you one--not deep in my heart. I
wouldn't let myself. I made excuses for you--explained everything
to myself."
"Yet your reason told y'u I was guilty "
"Yes, I think my mind hated you and my heart loved you."
He adored her for the frank simplicity of her confession, that
out of the greatness of her love she dared to make no secret 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 Glimpses of the Moon by Edith Wharton: In the dusk, while their prow slid over inverted palaces, and
through the scent of hidden gardens, she leaned against him and
murmured, her mind returning to the recent scene with Ellie:
"Nick, should you hate me dreadfully if I had no clothes?"
Her husband was kindling a cigarette, and the match lit up the
grin with which he answered: "But, my dear, have I ever shown
the slightest symptom--?"
"Oh, rubbish! When a woman says: 'No clothes,' she means:
'Not the right clothes.'"
He took a meditative puff. "Ah, you've been going over Ellie's
finery with her."
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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 Fables by Robert Louis Stevenson: was born to free them.
There was in that village a sword of heavenly forgery, beaten upon
Vulcan's anvil. It was never used but in the temple, and then the
flat of it only; and it hung on a nail by the catechist's chimney.
Early one night, Jack rose, and took the sword, and was gone out of
the house and the village in the darkness.
All night he walked at a venture; and when day came, he met
strangers going to the fields. Then he asked after the Wood of Eld
and the house of sorcery; and one said north, and one south; until
Jack saw that they deceived him. So then, when he asked his way of
any man, he showed the bright sword naked; and at that the gyve on
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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 Scaramouche by Rafael Sabatini: Scaramouche, "by your own confessing you don't hesitate, yourself,
to trespass upon his property."
"Ah, but then, you see, I am a lawyer. And lawyers are notoriously
unable to observe the law, just as actors are notoriously unable to
act. Moreover, sir, Nature imposes her limits upon us, and Nature
conquers respect for law as she conquers all else. Nature conquered
me last night when I had got as far as this. And so I slept here
without regard for the very high and puissant Marquis de La Tour
d'Azyr. At the same time, M. Scaramouche, you'll observe that I
did not flaunt my trespass quite as openly as you and your companions.
Having donned his boots, Andre-Louis came nimbly to the ground in
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