| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Tour Through Eastern Counties of England by Daniel Defoe: The common soldiers had passes to go home to their several
dwellings, but without arms, and an oath not to serve against the
Parliament.
The town to be preserved from pillage, paying 14,000 pounds ready
money.
The same day a council of war being called about the prisoners of
war, it was resolved that the Lords should be left to the disposal
of the Parliament. That Sir Charles Lucas, Sir George Lisle, and
Sir Marmaduke Gascoigne should be shot to death, and the other
officers prisoners to remain in custody till further order.
The two first of the three gentlemen were shot to death, and the
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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 Profits of Religion by Upton Sinclair: plunge into prohibition movements or good government
campaigns--they simply take the man in, at a standard price, and
the patient slave-sisters and attendants get him sober, and then
turn him out for society to make him drunk again. That is
"charity," and it is the special industry of Roman Catholicism.
They have been at it for a thousand years, cleaning up loathsome
and unsightly messes--"plague, pestilence and famine, battle and
murder and sudden death." Yet--puzzling as it would seem to
anyone not religious --there were never so many messes, never so
many different kinds of messes, as now at the end of the thousand
years of charitable activity!
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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 A Daughter of Eve by Honore de Balzac: prescribes for his wife; he frightens me. In the midst of this hateful
opulence, I find myself regretting the past, and thinking that our
mother was kind; she left us the nights when we could talk together;
at any rate, I was living with a dear being who loved me and suffered
with me; whereas here, in this sumptuous house, I live in a desert."
At this terrible confession the countess caught her sister's hand and
kissed it, weeping.
"How, then, can I help you," said Eugenie, in a low voice. "He would
be suspicious at once if he surprised us here, and would insist on
knowing all that you have been saying to me. I should be forced to
tell a lie, which is difficult indeed with so sly and treacherous a
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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 Plutarch's Lives by A. H. Clough: king checked many; the fears of the fugitives changed suddenly into
confidence. The place they first stood at was where now is the temple
of Jupiter Stator (which may be translated the Stayer); there they
rallied again into ranks, and repulsed the Sabines to the place called
now Regia, and to the temple of Vesta; where both parties, preparing to
begin a second battle, were prevented by a spectacle, strange to behold,
and defying description. For the daughters of the Sabines, who had been
carried off, came running, in great confusion, some on this side, some
on that, with miserable cries and lamentations, like creatures
possessed, in the midst of the army, and among the dead bodies, to come
at their husbands and their fathers, some with their young babes in
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