| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Collected Articles by Frederick Douglass: the precise steps to be taken, and the means to be employed.
The people are less concerned about these than the grand end to be attained.
They demand such a reconstruction as shall put an end to the present anarchical
state of things in the late rebellious States,--where frightful murders and
wholesale massacres are perpetrated in the very presence of Federal soldiers.
This horrible business they require shall cease. They want a reconstruction
such as will protect loyal men, black and white, in their persons and property;
such a one as will cause Northern industry, Northern capital, and Northern
civilization to flow into the South, and make a man from New England
as much at home in Carolina as elsewhere in the Republic.
No Chinese wall can now be tolerated. The South must be opened
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Plain Tales from the Hills by Rudyard Kipling: all was that he received the arrears of two and three-quarter years
of sipping in one attack of delirium tremens of the subdued kind;
beginning with suicidal depression, going on to fits and starts and
hysteria, and ending with downright raving. As he sat in a chair in
front of the fire, or walked up and down the room picking a
handkerchief to pieces, you heard what poor Moriarty really thought
of Mrs. Reiver, for he raved about her and his own fall for the most
part; though he ravelled some P. W. D. accounts into the same skein
of thought. He talked, and talked, and talked in a low dry whisper
to himself, and there was no stopping him. He seemed to know that
there was something wrong, and twice tried to pull himself together
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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 The Underground City by Jules Verne: Therefore it seemed quite possible that the solemn act of her marriage
with Harry might be the occasion of some new and dreadful outbreak
of his hatred.
One morning, a week before the day appointed for the ceremony,
Nell, rising early, went out of the cottage before anyone else.
No sooner had she crossed the threshold than a cry of indescribable
anguish escaped her lips.
Her voice was heard throughout the dwelling; in a moment,
Madge, Harry, and Simon were at her side. Nell was pale as death,
her countenance agitated, her features expressing the utmost horror.
Unable to speak, her eyes were riveted on the door of the cottage,
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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 Unconscious Comedians by Honore de Balzac: to the glory of France that every-day monument called the Opera, an
assemblage of forces, wills, and forms of genius, nowhere collected as
in Paris.
"I have already seen the Opera," said Gazonal, with a self-sufficient
air.
"Yes, from a three-francs-sixty-sous seat among the gods," replied the
landscape painter; "just as you have seen Paris in the rue Croix-des-
Petits-Champs, without knowing anything about it. What did they give
at the Opera when you were there?"
"Guillaume Tell."
"Well," said Leon, "Matilde's grand DUO must have delighted you. What
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