| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Street of Seven Stars by Mary Roberts Rinehart: eat!" She almost choked. "Peter, I must talk about money."
"I'm coming to that. Don't you suppose you more than earn
everything? Doesn't it humiliate me hourly to see you working
here?"
"Peter! Would you rob me of my last vestige of self-respect?"
This being unanswerable, Peter fell back on his major premise.
"If you'll put up with me for a day or so I'll take this list of
Anna's and hunt up some body. Just describe the person you desire
and I'll find her." He assumed a certainty he was far from
feeling, but it reassured the girl. "A woman, of course?"
"Of course. And not young."
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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 Europeans by Henry James: their religion, their profession, they can't tell."
Gertrude stood there gazing; she had not asked him to sit down.
She had never heard of people like that; she wanted to hear.
"Where do you live?" she asked.
"They can't tell that, either!" said Felix. "I am afraid
you will think they are little better than vagabonds.
I have lived anywhere--everywhere. I really think I have lived in
every city in Europe." Gertrude gave a little long soft exhalation.
It made the young man smile at her again; and his smile made
her blush a little. To take refuge from blushing she asked
him if, after his long walk, he was not hungry or thirsty.
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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 Selected Writings of Guy De Maupassant by Guy De Maupassant: chair and said: 'What can I do for you?'
" 'Monsieur, allow me first of all to introduce myself'; and I
gave him my card, which he took and read half aloud: 'The Comte
de Garens.'
"I continued: 'There are eleven of us here Monsieur l'Abbe, five
on grand guard, and six installed at the house of an unknown
inhabitant. The names of the six are, Garens (that is I), Pierre
de Marchas, Ludovic de Ponderel, Baron d'Etreillis, Karl
Massouligny, the painter's son, and Joseph Herbon, a young
musician. I have come to ask you, in their name and my own, to do
us the honor of supping with us. It is an Epiphany supper,
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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 Common Sense by Thomas Paine: as AMERICANS, but as our being the subjects of GREAT BRITAIN.
But Britain is the parent country, say some. Then the more shame
upon her conduct. Even brutes do not devour their young,
nor savages make war upon their families; wherefore the assertion,
if true, turns to her reproach; but it happens not to be true,
or only partly so and the phrase PARENT or MOTHER COUNTRY
hath been jesuitically adopted by the king and his parasites,
with a low papistical design of gaining an unfair bias
on the credulous weakness of our minds. Europe, and not England,
is the parent country of America. This new world hath been the asylum
for the persecuted lovers of civil and religious liberty from EVERY PART
Common Sense |
