| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Mrs. Warren's Profession by George Bernard Shaw: nothing. You think that people are what they pretend to be: that
the way you were taught at school and college to think right and
proper is the way things really are. But it's not: it's all only
a pretence, to keep the cowardly slavish common run of people
quiet. Do you want to find that out, like other women, at forty,
when youve thrown yourself away and lost your chances; or wont
you take it in good time now from your own mother, that loves you
and swears to you that it's truth: gospel truth? [Urgently]
Vivie: the big people, the clever people, the managing people,
all know it. They do as I do, and think what I think. I know
plenty of them. I know them to speak to, to introduce you to, to
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Pivot of Civilization by Margaret Sanger: unwilling mother suffer an initial handicap that cannot be measured by
cold statistics. Their lives are blighted from the start. To
substantiate this fact, I have chosen to present the conclusions of
reports on Child Labor and records of defect and delinquency published
by organizations with no bias in favour of Birth Control. The evidence
is before us. It crowds in upon us from all sides. But prior to this
new approach, no attempt had been made to correlate the effects of the
blind and irresponsible play of the sexual instinct with its deep-
rooted causes.
The duty of the educator and the intellectual creator of public
opinion is, in this connection, of the greatest importance. For
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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 Bab:A Sub-Deb, Mary Roberts Rinehart by Mary Roberts Rinehart: youngest daughter is not the Familey baby at seventeen. All I was
doing was furnishing the shock. If things turned out badly, as they
did, it was because I rather overdid the thing. That is all. My
motives were perfectly ireproachible.
Well, they fell on the muffins like pigs, and I could hardly stand
it. So I wandered into the den, and it occurred to me to write the
letter then. I felt that they all expected me to do something anyhow.
If I had never written the wretched letter things would be better
now. As I say, I overdid. But everything had gone so smoothly all
day that I was decieved. But the real reason was a new set of furs.
I had secured the dresses and the promise of the necklace on a Poem
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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 Vicar of Tours by Honore de Balzac: "I am," she continued, "the innocent cause of your misfortunes, and,
moreover, if it had not been for my nephew you would never have begun
this lawsuit, which has now turned to your injury and to ours. But
listen to me."
She told him succinctly the immense ramifications of the affair, and
explained the serious nature of its consequences. Her own meditations
during the night had told her something of the probable antecedents of
Troubert's life; she was able, without misleading Birotteau, to show
him the net so ably woven round him by revenge, and to make him see
the power and great capacity of his enemy, whose hatred to Chapeloud,
under whom he had been forced to crouch for a dozen years, now found
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