| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Domestic Peace by Honore de Balzac: women of middle age; and the Colonel seized the opportunity to make
his way through this palisade hung with shawls and wraps. He began by
making himself agreeable to the dowagers, and so from one to another,
and from compliment to compliment, he at last reached the empty space
next the stranger. At the risk of catching on to the gryphons and
chimaeras of the huge candelabrum, he stood there, braving the glare
and dropping of the wax candles, to Martial's extreme annoyance.
The Colonel, far too tactful to speak suddenly to the little blue lady
on his right, began by saying to a plain woman who was seated on the
left:
"This is a splendid ball, madame! What luxury! What life! On my word,
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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 Wheels of Chance by H. G. Wells: Chichester?" said Mr. Hoopdriver. It was really equal to Sherlock
Holmes--that." If they've made tracks, I shall find those tracks.
If not--they're in the town." He was then in East Street, and he
started at once to make the circuit of the place, discovering
incidentally that Chichester is a walled city. In passing, he
made inquiries at the Black Swan, the Crown, and the Red Lion
Hotel. At six o'clock in the evening, he was walking downcast,
intent, as one who had dropped money, along the road towards
Bognor, kicking up the dust with his shoes and fretting with
disappointed pugnacity. A thwarted, crestfallen Hoopdriver it
was, as you may well imagine. And then suddenly there jumped upon
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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 Glimpses of the Moon by Edith Wharton: It was the point that had always secretly tormented Susy; she
often wondered if it equally tormented Nick.
"I hope I shall have enough common sense--" she began.
"Oh, of course: common sense is what you're both bound to base
your argument on, whichever way you argue."
This flash of insight disconcerted her, and she said, a little
irritably: "What should you do then, if you married?--Hush,
Streffy! I forbid you to shout like that--all the gondolas are
stopping to look!"
"How can I help it?" He rocked backward and forward in his
chair. "'If you marry,' she says: 'Streffy, what have you
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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 Woman and Labour by Olive Schreiner: for any length of time, in any direction: as her brain weakens, weakens
the man's she bears; as her muscle softens, softens his; as she decays,
decays the people.
Other causes may, and do, lead to the enervation and degeneration of a
class or race; the parasitism of its child-bearing women must.
We, the European women of this age, stand today where again and again, in
the history of the past, women of other races have stood; but our condition
is yet more grave, and of wider import to humanity as a whole than theirs
ever was. Let us again consider more closely why this is so.
Chapter III. Parasitism (continued).
We have seen that, in the past, no such thing as the parasitism of the
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