The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Water-Babies by Charles Kingsley: trust and hope it was because the mussel hurt his corn, that the
professor answered quite sharply:
"Because there ain't."
Which was not even good English, my dear little boy; for, as you
must know from Aunt Agitate's Arguments, the professor ought to
have said, if he was so angry as to say anything of the kind -
Because there are not: or are none: or are none of them; or (if
he had been reading Aunt Agitate too) because they do not exist.
And he groped with his net under the weeds so violently, that, as
it befell, he caught poor little Tom.
He felt the net very heavy; and lifted it out quickly, with Tom 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 Tragedy of Pudd'nhead Wilson by Mark Twain: the petition. Time had not modified his ancient detestation of the
humble drudge and protector of his boyhood; it was still bitter
and uncompromising. He sat up and bent a severe gaze upon the face
of the young fellow whose name he was unconsciously using and whose
family rights he was enjoying. He maintained the gaze until the victim
of it had become satisfactorily pallid with terror, then he said:
"What does the old rip want with me?"
The petition was meekly repeated.
"Who gave you permission to come and disturb me with the social
attentions of niggers?"
Tom had risen. The other young man was trembling now, visibly.
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