| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Arizona Nights by Stewart Edward White: You bet I'll try,"
yelled Denton, and laughing fit to kill, danced off up the beach,
and out into a sort of grey mist that shut off everything beyond
a certain distance from me now.
So I kicked Schwartz, he felt in his pocket, threw a gold piece
away, and "bought a little more walk."
My entire vision was fifty feet or so across. Beyond that was
grey mist. Inside my circle I could see the sand quite plainly
and Denton's footprints. If I moved a little to the left, the
wash of the waters would lap under the edge of that grey curtain.
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift: long, whence I had liberty to borrow what books I pleased. The
queen's joiner had contrived in one of Glumdalclitch's rooms, a
kind of wooden machine five-and-twenty feet high, formed like a
standing ladder; the steps were each fifty feet long. It was
indeed a moveable pair of stairs, the lowest end placed at ten
feet distance from the wall of the chamber. The book I had a
mind to read, was put up leaning against the wall: I first
mounted to the upper step of the ladder, and turning my face
towards the book, began at the top of the page, and so walking to
the right and left about eight or ten paces, according to the
length of the lines, till I had gotten a little below the level
Gulliver's Travels |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Plutarch's Lives by A. H. Clough: to fight against a Roman, and a general against a general; and
when Metellus refused the challenge, they reproached him.
Metellus derided and contemned this, and rightly so; for, as
Theophrastus observes, a general should die like a general, and
not like a skirmisher. But perceiving that the town of the
Langobritae, who gave great assistance to Sertorius, might
easily be taken for want of water, as there was but one well
within the walls, and the besieger would be master of the
springs and fountains in the suburbs, he advanced against the
place, expecting to carry it in two days' time, there being no
more water, and gave command to his soldiers to take five days'
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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 Baby Mine by Margaret Mayo: think that's the only sensible way to begin."
"If I'd told Alfred all MY ideas about things," smiled Zoie,
"there'd have BEEN no beginning."
"What do you mean?" asked Aggie, with a troubled look.
"Well, take our meeting," explained Zoie. "Just as we were
introduced, that horrid little Willie Peck caught his heel in a
flounce of my skirt. I turned round to slap him, but I saw
Alfred looking, so I patted his ugly little red curls instead.
And what do you think? Alfred told me to-night that it was my
devotion to Willie that first made him adore me."
"And you didn't explain to him?" asked Aggie in amazement.
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