| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Silverado Squatters by Robert Louis Stevenson: before it, daylight whitening in the arch, or that it should
come trotting forth into the sunlight with a song.
The two stages had gone by when I got down, and the Toll
House stood, dozing in sun and dust and silence, like a place
enchanted. My mission was after hay for bedding, and that I
was readily promised. But when I mentioned that we were
waiting for Rufe, the people shook their heads. Rufe was not
a regular man any way, it seemed; and if he got playing poker
- Well, poker was too many for Rufe. I had not yet heard
them bracketted together; but it seemed a natural
conjunction, and commended itself swiftly to my fears; and as
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Crito by Plato: like yourself. And indeed, I am ashamed not only of you, but of us who are
your friends, when I reflect that the whole business will be attributed
entirely to our want of courage. The trial need never have come on, or
might have been managed differently; and this last act, or crowning folly,
will seem to have occurred through our negligence and cowardice, who might
have saved you, if we had been good for anything; and you might have saved
yourself, for there was no difficulty at all. See now, Socrates, how sad
and discreditable are the consequences, both to us and you. Make up your
mind then, or rather have your mind already made up, for the time of
deliberation is over, and there is only one thing to be done, which must be
done this very night, and if we delay at all will be no longer practicable
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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 Pierre Grassou by Honore de Balzac: exhibited unutterable mittens on a puffy pair of hands; the plumes of
a first-class funeral floated on an over-flowing bonnet; laces adorned
her shoulders, as round behind as they were before; consequently, the
spherical form of the cocoa-nut was perfect. Her feet, of a kind that
painters call abatis, rose above the varnished leather of the shoes in
a swelling that was some inches high. How the feet were ever got into
the shoes, no one knows.
Following these vegetable parents was a young asparagus, who presented
a tiny head with smoothly banded hair of the yellow-carroty tone that
a Roman adores, long, stringy arms, a fairly white skin with reddish
spots upon it, large innocent eyes, and white lashes, scarcely any
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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 Faith of Men by Jack London: through as quickly and neatly as a knife through thin cream, and
the current swept him from view down under the stream ice.
That night his mate fled away through the pale moonlight, Rasmunsen
futilely puncturing the silence with his revolver--a thing that he
handled with more celerity than cleverness. Thirty-six hours later
the Indian made a police camp on the Big Salmon.
"Um--um--um funny mans--what you call?--top um head all loose," the
interpreter explained to the puzzled captain. "Eh? Yep, clazy,
much clazy mans. Eggs, eggs, all a time eggs--savvy? Come bime-
by."
It was several days before Rasmunsen arrived, the three sleds
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