| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from A Horse's Tale by Mark Twain: when we learned that Cathy was coming, she only changed from one
division of the family to the other. She has the warm heart of her
race, and its lavish affections, and when Cathy arrived the pair
were mother and child in five minutes, and that is what they are to
date and will continue. Dorcas really thinks she raised George,
and that is one of her prides, but perhaps it was a mutual raising,
for their ages were the same - thirteen years short of mine. But
they were playmates, at any rate; as regards that, there is no room
for dispute.
Cathy thinks Dorcas is the best Catholic in America except herself.
She could not pay any one a higher compliment than that, and Dorcas
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Fables by Robert Louis Stevenson: there before him were the palm trees of the island. He swam to the
shore gladly, and landed. Much matter of thought was in that
missionary's mind.
"I seem to have been misinformed upon some points," said he.
"Perhaps there is not much in it, as I supposed; but there is
something in it after all. Let me be glad of that."
And he rang the bell for service.
MORAL.
The sticks break, the stones crumble,
The eternal altars tilt and tumble,
Sanctions and tales dislimn like mist
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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 Cousin Betty by Honore de Balzac: settled at last in the bosom of his family.
"Lisbeth was right," said Madame Hulot gently and without any useless
recrimination, "she told us how it would be."
"Yes. If only I had listened to her, instead of flying into a rage,
that day when I wanted poor Hortense to go home rather than compromise
the reputation of that--Oh! my dear Adeline, we must save Wenceslas.
He is up to his chin in that mire!"
"My poor old man, the respectable middle-classes have turned out no
better than the actresses," said Adeline, with a smile.
The Baroness was alarmed at the change in her Hector; when she saw him
so unhappy, ailing, crushed under his weight of woes, she was all
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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 Twelve Stories and a Dream by H. G. Wells: pattern of the tablecloth for a space.
When he spoke again it was clear that his former sweetheart had clean
vanished from his mind, and that the talk had brought back the Fairy
Lady triumphant in his heart. He talked of her--soon he was letting
out the oddest things, queer love secrets it would be treachery to
repeat. I think, indeed, that was the queerest thing in the whole
affair, to hear that neat little grocer man after his story was done,
with a glass of whisky beside him and a cigar between his fingers,
witnessing, with sorrow still, though now, indeed, with a time-blunted
anguish, of the inappeasable hunger of the heart that presently
came upon him. "I couldn't eat," he said, "I couldn't sleep. I made
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