| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Country Doctor by Honore de Balzac: at once, that I would have no secrets from her; I felt ashamed that I
had so long delayed to tell her about the sorrows that I had brought
upon myself.
"Unluckily, with the morrow of this happy day a letter came from my
son's tutor, the life of the child so dear to me was in danger. I went
away without confiding my secret to Evelina, merely telling her family
that I was urgently required in Paris. Her parents took alarm during
my absence. They feared that there I was entangled in some way, and
wrote to Paris to make inquiries about me. It was scarcely consistent
with their religious principles; but they suspected me, and did not
even give me an opportunity of clearing myself.
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Euthyphro by Plato: now?
EUTHYPHRO: You are quite right.
SOCRATES: Does not every man love that which he deems noble and just and
good, and hate the opposite of them?
EUTHYPHRO: Very true.
SOCRATES: But, as you say, people regard the same things, some as just and
others as unjust,--about these they dispute; and so there arise wars and
fightings among them.
EUTHYPHRO: Very true.
SOCRATES: Then the same things are hated by the gods and loved by the
gods, and are both hateful and dear to them?
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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 Love Songs by Sara Teasdale: And I who was fresh as the rainfall
Am bitter as the sea.
November
The world is tired, the year is old,
The fading leaves are glad to die,
The wind goes shivering with cold
Where the brown reeds are dry.
Our love is dying like the grass,
And we who kissed grow coldly kind,
Half glad to see our old love pass
Like leaves along the wind.
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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 Maria, or the Wrongs of Woman by Mary Wollstonecraft: minds, that, for a while, she indulged the superstitious notion
that she was justly punished by the death of her child, for having
for an instant ceased to regret her loss. Two or three letters from
Darnford, full of soothing, manly tenderness, only added poignancy
to these accusing emotions; yet the passionate style in which he
expressed, what he termed the first and fondest wish of his heart,
"that his affection might make her some amends for the cruelty and
injustice she had endured," inspired a sentiment of gratitude to
heaven; and her eyes filled with delicious tears, when, at the
conclusion of his letter, wishing to supply the place of her unworthy
relations, whose want of principle he execrated, he assured her,
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