| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Royalty Restored/London Under Charles II by J. Fitzgerald Molloy: spoken of taverns where "fury and intemperance" reign, and where,
"that nothing may be wanting to the height of luxury and impiety,
organs have been translated out of the churches for the purpose
of chanting their dithyrambics and bestiall bacchanalias to the
tune of those instruments which were wont to assist them in the
celebration of God's praises," the writer continues: "Your
lordship will scarce believe me that the ladies of greatest
quality suffer themselves to be treated in one of those taverns,
where a curtezan in other cities would scarcely vouchsafe to be
entertained; but you will be more astonish't when I shall assure
you that they drink their crowned cups roundly, strain healths
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Tom Sawyer, Detective by Mark Twain: believe Uncle Silas killed him and hid his body somers;
and that would ruin Uncle Silas and drive HIM out of the
country--hang him, maybe; I dunno. But when they found
their dead brother in the sycamores without knowing him,
because he was so battered up, they see they had a better thing;
disguise BOTH and bury Jake and dig him up presently
all dressed up in Jubiter's clothes, and hire Jim Lane
and Bill Withers and the others to swear to some handy
lies--which they done. And there they set, now, and I
told them they would be looking sick before I got done,
and that is the way they're looking now.
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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 Historical Lecturers and Essays by Charles Kingsley: a special illumination, that they might be the lights of the earth,
and the salt of the world? What if they have, each in their turn,
abused that divine teaching to make themselves the tyrants, instead
of the ministers, of the less enlightened? To increase the
inequalities of nature by their own selfishness, instead of
decreasing them, into the equality of grace, by their own self-
sacrifice? What if the Bible after all was right, and even more
right than we were taught to think?
So runs my dream. If, after I have confessed to it, you think me
still worth listening to, in this enlightened nineteenth century, I
will go on.
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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 Somebody's Little Girl by Martha Young: Bessie Bell was always so glad when Sister Helen Vincula took her to
the Mall in the afternoon when the band played.
All the little children went every afternoon in their prettiest
dresses to the Mall where the band played.
Because in the afternoon the band played just the sort of music that
little girls liked to hear.
Every afternoon all the nurses came to the Mall and brought all the
babies, and the nurses rolled the babies up and down the sawdust
walks in the pretty baby-carriages, with nice white, and pink, and
blue parasols over the babies' heads.
That afternoon Sister Helen Vincula stayed a long time with Bessie
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