| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Dynamiter by Robert Louis Stevenson and Fanny Van De Grift Stevenson: continue to exist. Conceive me now, accused before one of
your unjust tribunals; conceive the various witnesses
appearing, and the singular variety of their reports! One
will have visited me in this drawing-room as it originally
stood; a second finds it as it is to-night; and to-morrow or
next day, all may have been changed. If you love romance (as
artists do), few lives are more romantic than that of the
obscure individual now addressing you. Obscure yet famous.
Mine is an anonymous, infernal glory. By infamous means, I
work towards my bright purpose. I found the liberty and
peace of a poor country, desperately abused; the future
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from A Woman of No Importance by Oscar Wilde: LADY HUNSTANTON. Certainly, dear. I will send one of the servants
into the dining-room to fetch him. I don't know what keeps the
gentlemen so long. [Rings bell.] When I knew Lord Illingworth
first as plain George Harford, he was simply a very brilliant young
man about town, with not a penny of money except what poor dear
Lady Cecilia gave him. She was quite devoted to him. Chiefly, I
fancy, because he was on bad terms with his father. Oh, here is
the dear Archdeacon. [To Servant.] It doesn't matter.
[Enter SIR JOHN and DOCTOR DAUBENY. SIR JOHN goes over to LADY
STUTFIELD, DOCTOR DAUBENY to LADY HUNSTANTON.]
THE ARCHDEACON. Lord Illingworth has been most entertaining. I
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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 Options by O. Henry: rats'-nest of paper bags for the potatoes and onions. She came out
with her nose and chin just a little sharper pointed.
There was neither a potato nor an onion. Now, what kind of a beef-
Stew can you make out of simply beef? You can make oyster-soup
without oysters, turtle-soup without turtles, coffee-cake without
coffee, but you can't make beef-stew without potatoes and onions.
But rib beef alone, in an emergency, can make an ordinary pine door
look like a wrought-iron gambling-house portal to the wolf. With salt
and pepper and a tablespoonful of flour (first well stirred in a
little cold water) 'twill serve--'tis not so deep as a lobster a la
Newburg nor so wide as a church festival doughnut; but 'twill serve.
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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 Meno by Plato: given area of the triangle falls short by an area corresponding to the part
produced (Or, similar to the area so applied.), then one consequence
follows, and if this is impossible then some other; and therefore I wish to
assume a hypothesis before I tell you whether this triangle is capable of
being inscribed in the circle':--that is a geometrical hypothesis. And we
too, as we know not the nature and qualities of virtue, must ask, whether
virtue is or is not taught, under a hypothesis: as thus, if virtue is of
such a class of mental goods, will it be taught or not? Let the first
hypothesis be that virtue is or is not knowledge,--in that case will it be
taught or not? or, as we were just now saying, 'remembered'? For there is
no use in disputing about the name. But is virtue taught or not? or
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