| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Tapestried Chamber by Walter Scott: from dangerous adventures many tokens of decided success. Still,
the ancient chief conceived, as it would seem, that his son was
scarce yet entitled by age and experience to be entrusted with
the two-handed sword, by the use of which he had himself been so
dreadfully distinguished.
At length an English champion, one of the name of Foster (if I
rightly recollect), had the audacity to send a challenge to the
best swordsman in Liddesdale; and young Armstrong, burning for
chivalrous distinction, accepted the challenge.
The heart of the disabled old man swelled with joy when he heard
that the challenge was passed and accepted, and the meeting fixed
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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 Tragedy of Pudd'nhead Wilson by Mark Twain: ordinary cashbox on the table, with three thousand dollars in it.
It is easily supposable that the thief was concealed in the
house; that he knew of this box, and of its owner's habit of
counting its contents and arranging his accounts at night--if he
had that habit, which I do not assert, of course--that he tried
to take the box while its owner slept, but made a noise and was
seized, and had to use the knife to save himself from capture;
and that he fled without his booty because he heard help coming.
"I have now done with my theory, and will proceed to the
evidences by which I propose to try to prove its soundness."
Wilson took up several of his strips of glass. When the audience
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