| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Touchstone by Edith Wharton: scope than New York to her expanding personality. She was already
famous and her laurels were yet unharvested.
For a moment the news roused Glennard to a jealous sense of lost
opportunities. He wanted, at any rate, to reassert his power
before she made the final effort of escape. They had not met for
over a year, but of course he could not let her sail without
seeing her. She came to New York the day before her departure,
and they spent its last hours together. Glennard had planned no
course of action--he simply meant to let himself drift. They both
drifted, for a long time, down the languid current of
reminiscence; she seemed to sit passive, letting him push his way
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from King Henry VI by William Shakespeare: Am I not witch'd like her? or thou not false like him?
Ay me, I can no more! die, Margaret!
For Henry weeps that thou dost live so long.
[Noise within. Enter WARWICK, SALISBURY, and many Commons.]
WARWICK.
It is reported, mighty sovereign,
That good Duke Humphrey traitorously is murther'd
By Suffolk and the Cardinal Beaufort's means.
The commons, like an angry hive of bees
That want their leader, scatter up and down
And care not who they sting in his revenge.
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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 Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen: the town, and I shall take the opportunity of calling in Grosvenor
Street."
She wrote again when the visit was paid, and she had seen Miss
Bingley. "I did not think Caroline in spirits," were her words,
"but she was very glad to see me, and reproached me for giving
her no notice of my coming to London. I was right, therefore,
my last letter had never reached her. I inquired after their
brother, of course. He was well, but so much engaged with Mr.
Darcy that they scarcely ever saw him. I found that Miss Darcy
was expected to dinner. I wish I could see her. My visit was
not long, as Caroline and Mrs. Hurst were going out. I dare say
Pride and Prejudice |
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 Mother by Owen Wister: learned that one house in St. Louis alone twirled 50,000 eggs in a day,
the possible profits of the Egg Trust became clear to me. But they were
not so clear to Ethel. She said that you could not monopolise hens. That
they would always be laying eggs and putting it in the power of
competitors to hatch them by incubators. Nor did she have confidence in
the Pasteurised Feeder. 'Even if you get the parents to adopt it,' she
said, 'you cannot get the children. If they do not like the taste of the
milk as it comes out of the bottle through the Feeder, they will simply
not take it.'"
"'Well,' I answered, 'old Mrs. Beverly is holding on to hers.'"
"When I said this, Ethel sat with her mouth tight. Then she opened it and
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