| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Padre Ignacio by Owen Wister: the letter and read:
My dear Friend,--It is through no man's fault but mine that I have come
to this. I have had plenty of luck, and lately have been counting the
days until I should return home. But last night heavy news from New
Orleans reached me, and I tore the pressed flower to pieces. Under the
first smart and humiliation of broken faith I was rendered desperate, and
picked a needless quarrel. Thank God, it is I who have the punishment. By
dear friend, as I lie here, leaving a world that no man ever loved more,
I have come to understand you. For you and your mission have been much in
my thoughts. It is strange how good can be done, not at the time when it
is intended, but afterward; and you have done this good to me. I say over
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Virginibus Puerisque by Robert Louis Stevenson: time to time, as indignation flashes from his eyes or anger
clouds his forehead. He is composing articles, delivering
orations, and conducting the most impassioned interviews, by
the way. A little farther on, and it is as like as not he
will begin to sing. And well for him, supposing him to be no
great master in that art, if he stumble across no stolid
peasant at a corner; for on such an occasion, I scarcely know
which is the more troubled, or whether it is worse to suffer
the confusion of your troubadour, or the unfeigned alarm of
your clown. A sedentary population, accustomed, besides, to
the strange mechanical bearing of the common tramp, can in no
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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 Soul of the Far East by Percival Lowell: your patrimony upon the most ordinary articles of every-day use.
If in despair you turn for refuge to the booths, you will but have
delivered yourself into the embrace of still more irresistible
fascinations. For the nocturnal squatters are there for the express
purpose of catching the susceptible. The shops were modestly
attractive from their nature, but the booths deliberately make eyes
at you, and with telling effect. The very atmosphere is bewitching.
The lurid smurkiness of the torches lends an appropriate weirdness
to the figure of the uncouthly clad pedlar who, with the politeness
of the arch-fiend himself, displays to an eager group the fatal
fascinations of some new conceit. Here the latest thing in
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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 Riverman by Stewart Edward White: was down and the water had ceased temporarily to flow over it, the
work went faster. Orde, watching with the eye of an expert,
vouchsafed to the taciturn Newmark that he thought they'd make it.
Near midnight, however, a swaying lantern was seen approaching.
Orde, leaping to his feet with a curse at the boy on watch, heard
the sound of wheels. A moment later, Daly's bulky form stepped into
the illumination of the fire.
Orde wandered over to where his principal stood peering about him.
"Hullo!" said he.
"Oh, there you are!" cried Daly angrily. "What in hell you up to
here?"
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