| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Last War: A World Set Free by H. G. Wells: attended to these incidentally. The constitution it was that
waited. It was presently found convenient to keep the
constitution waiting indefinitely as King Egbert had foreseen,
and meanwhile, with an increasing self-confidence, that council
went on governing....
On this first evening of all the council's gatherings, after King
Egbert had talked for a long time and drunken and praised very
abundantly the simple red wine of the country that Leblanc had
procured for them, he fathered about him a group of congenial
spirits and fell into a discourse upon simplicity, praising it
above all things and declaring that the ultimate aim of art,
The Last War: A World Set Free |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Wrong Box by Stevenson & Osbourne: John.
'And then Michael,' continued Morris, 'is in the very thick of
it. All his clients have come to grief; his whole business is
rotten eggs. If any man could arrange it, he could; and depend
upon it, he has his plan all straight; and depend upon it, it's a
good one, for he's clever, and be damned to him! But I'm clever
too; and I'm desperate. I lost seven thousand eight hundred
pounds when I was an orphan at school.'
'O, don't be tedious,' interrupted John. 'You've lost far more
already trying to get it back.'
CHAPTER II. In Which Morris takes Action
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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 Court Life in China by Isaac Taylor Headland: considered the adoption of a new educational system.
But now let us notice the animus of Kuang Hsu. He has been
praised without stint for his leaning towards foreign affairs,
when in reality was it not simply an effort on the part of the
young man to make China strong enough to resist the incursions of
the European powers? Germany had taken Kiaochou, Russia had taken
Port Arthur, Japan had taken Formosa, Great Britain had taken
Weihaiwei, France had taken Kuangchouwan, and even Italy was
anxious to have a slice of his territory, while all the English
papers in the port cities were talking of China being divided up
amongst the Powers, and it was these things which led the Emperor
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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 Dynamiter by Robert Louis Stevenson and Fanny Van De Grift Stevenson: that she had insulted me, treated me as a slave (and here my
father's brow began to darken), threatened to buy me at a
sale, and questioned my own servants before my face; and
that, at last, finding myself quite helpless and exposed to
these intolerable liberties, I had fled from the house in
terror, indignation, and amazement.
'Teresa,' said my father, with singular gravity of voice, 'I
must make to-day a call upon your courage; much must be told
you, there is much that you must do to help me; and my
daughter must prove herself a woman by her spirit. As for
this Mendizabal, what shall I say? or how am I to tell you
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