| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Turn of the Screw by Henry James: redeemed in a measure indeed by not being wholly disengaged nor
of a height too pretentious, dating, in their gingerbread antiquity,
from a romantic revival that was already a respectable past.
I admired them, had fancies about them, for we could all profit
in a degree, especially when they loomed through the dusk,
by the grandeur of their actual battlements; yet it was not at
such an elevation that the figure I had so often invoked seemed
most in place.
It produced in me, this figure, in the clear twilight, I remember,
two distinct gasps of emotion, which were, sharply, the shock
of my first and that of my second surprise. My second was a
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Early Short Fiction of Edith Wharton by Edith Wharton: does, and the others--I don't know why, unless you have shown
your money too freely--and the English are all rich, are they
not? And--oh, oh--do you understand? Oh, I can't bear your
eyes!"
She dropped into a chair, her head on her arms, and Tony in a
flash was at her side.
"My poor child, my poor Polixena!" he cried, and wept and clasped
her.
"You ARE rich, are you not? You would promise them a ransom?"
she persisted.
"To enable you to marry the Marquess?"
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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 Lucile by Owen Meredith: And tyranny elsewhere.
"I wander away
Too far, though, from what I was wishing to say.
You, for instance, read Plato. You know that the soul
Is immortal; and put this in rhyme, on the whole,
Very well, with sublime illustration. Man's heart
Is a mystery, doubtless. You trace it in art:--
The Greek Psyche,--that's beauty,--the perfect ideal.
But then comes the imperfect, perfectible real,
With its pain'd aspiration and strife. In those pale
Ill-drawn virgins of Giotto you see it prevail.
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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 American by Henry James: I felt it, and yet I listened; that was your fault.
I liked you too much; I believed in you."
"And don't you believe in me now?"
"More than ever. But now it doesn't matter. I have given you up."
Newman gave a powerful thump with his clenched fist upon his knee.
"Why, why, why?" he cried. "Give me a reason--a decent reason.
You are not a child--you are not a minor, nor an idiot.
You are not obliged to drop me because your mother told you to.
Such a reason isn't worthy of you."
"I know that; it's not worthy of me. But it's the only one I have to give.
After all," said Madame de Cintre, throwing out her hands, "think me an idiot
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