| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Call of the Wild by Jack London: passed into the stage where blows were required to rouse it. The
whip flashed out, here and there, on its merciless errands. John
Thornton compressed his lips. Sol-leks was the first to crawl to
his feet. Teek followed. Joe came next, yelping with pain. Pike
made painful efforts. Twice he fell over, when half up, and on
the third attempt managed to rise. Buck made no effort. He lay
quietly where he had fallen. The lash bit into him again and
again, but he neither whined nor struggled. Several times
Thornton started, as though to speak, but changed his mind. A
moisture came into his eyes, and, as the whipping continued, he
arose and walked irresolutely up and down.
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Domestic Peace by Honore de Balzac: doubt assured herself that they could be seen, for she seated herself
on an ottoman with a fairly good grace.
"This room is charming," said she, admiring the sky-blue hangings
looped with pearls.
"All here is love and delight!" said the Baron, with deep emotion.
In the mysterious light which prevailed he looked at the Countess, and
detected on her gently agitated face an expression of uneasiness,
modesty, and eagerness which enchanted him. The young lady smiled, and
this smile seemed to put an end to the struggle of feeling surging in
her heart; in the most insinuating way she took her adorer's left
hand, and drew from his finger the ring on which she had fixed 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 In a German Pension by Katherine Mansfield: little pieces to the bridegroom beside her, who wore a suit of white
clothes much too large for him and a white silk tie that rose halfway up
his collar. Grouped about them, with a fine regard for dignity and
precedence, sat their parents and relations; and perched on a stool at the
bride's right hand a little girl in a crumpled muslin dress with a wreath
of forget-me-nots hanging over one ear. Everybody was laughing and
talking, shaking hands, clinking glasses, stamping on the floor--a stench
of beer and perspiration filled the air.
Frau Brechenmacher, following her man down the room after greeting the
bridal party, knew that she was going to enjoy herself. She seemed to fill
out and become rosy and warm as she sniffed that familiar festive smell.
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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: Constitution contains its own antithesis, its own Upper and Lower
House-freedom as a generalization, the abolition of freedom as a
specification. Accordingly, so long as the name of freedom was
respected, and only its real enforcement was prevented in a legal way,
of course the constitutional existence of freedom remained uninjured,
untouched, however completely its common existence might be
extinguished.
This Constitution, so ingeniously made invulnerable, was, however, like
Achilles, vulnerable at one point: not in its heel, but in its head, or
rather, in the two heads into which it ran out-the Legislative Assembly,
on the one hand, and the President on the other. Run through the
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