| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Philosophy 4 by Owen Wister: hot. The pale-skinned Oscar stood this strain better than the
unaccustomed Bertie and Billy. Their jovial eyes had grown hollow
to-night, although their minds were going gallantly, as you have
probably noticed. Their criticisms, slangy and abrupt, struck the
scholastic Oscar as flippancies which he must indulge, since the pay was
handsome. That these idlers should jump in with doubts and questions
not contained in his sacred notes raised in him feelings betrayed just
once in that remark about "orriginal rresearch."
"Nine--ten--eleven--twelve," went the little timepiece; and Oscar rose.
"Gentlemen," he said, closing the sacred notes, "we have finished the
causal law."
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from King Henry VI by William Shakespeare: Even for the loss of thee, having no more,
As Priam was for all his valiant sons.
I'll bear thee hence; and let them fight that will,
For I have murder'd where I should not kill.
[Exit with the body.]
KING HENRY.
Sad-hearted men, much overgone with care,
Here sits a king more woeful than you are.
[Alarums. Excursions. Enter QUEEN MARGARET,
PRINCE OF WALES, and EXETER.]
PRINCE.
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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: devoid of substance. It begins impressively with a dual ceremony,
the civil contract, which amounts to a contract of civility between
the parties, and a religious rite to render the same perpetual,
and there it is too apt to end.
So much for the immediate influence on the man; the eventual effect
on the race remains to be considered. Now, if the first result be
anything, the second must in the end be everything. For however
trifling it be in the individual instance, it goes on accumulating
with each successive generation, like compound interest.
The choosing of a wife by family suffrage is not simply an exponent
of the impersonal state of things, it is a power toward bringing
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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 Art of Writing by Robert Louis Stevenson: brought siKs or SeVen hundred Fighting men into the Field did
not think it Fair that they should be outVoted by gentlemen
From Ireland, and From the Low Kountries, who bore indeed
King James's Kommission, and were Kalled Kolonels and
Kaptains, but who were Kolonels without regiments and
Kaptains without Kompanies.'
A moment of FV in all this world of K's! It was not the
English language, then, that was an instrument of one string,
but Macaulay that was an incomparable dauber.
It was probably from this barbaric love of repeating the same
sound, rather than from any design of clearness, that he
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