| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from An Unsocial Socialist by George Bernard Shaw: "I want to get on board, and go up to Lyvern with you," said
Trefusis. "He seems a well fed brute, that."
"Better fed nor me," said the man. "You can't get the work out of
a hunderfed 'orse that you can out of a hunderfed man or woman.
I've bin in parts of England where women pulled the barges. They
come cheaper nor 'orses, because it didn't cost nothing to get
new ones when the old ones we wore out."
"Then why not employ them?" said Trefusis, with ironical gravity.
"The principle of buying laborforce in the cheapest market and
selling its product in the dearest has done much to make
Englishmen--what they are."
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Copy-Cat & Other Stories by Mary E. Wilkins Freeman: ward she wept miserably over its loss when alone in
her room. The spirit had gone out of Margaret,
the little which she had possessed. She had always
been a gentle, sensitive creature, and was almost
helpless before the wishes of others.
After all, it had been a long time since Margaret
had been able to force the ring even upon her little
finger, but she had derived a small pleasure from
the reflection that she owned it in its faded velvet
box, hidden under laces in her top bureau drawer.
She did not like to see it blazing forth from the tie
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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 Chouans by Honore de Balzac: brave Chouan, because he is old and the sword he drew for the good
cause dangles on his withered legs, palsied with exposure. Can you say
that we are wrong in feeling thus?"
"You talk well, Monsieur du Vissard, but you are over hasty," replied
the marquis.
"Listen, marquis," said the Comte de Bauvan, in a whisper. "Rifoel has
really, on my word, told the truth. You are sure, yourself, to have
the ear of the king, while the rest of us only see him at a distance
and from time to time. I will own to you that if you do not give me
your word as a gentleman that I shall, in due course of time, obtain
the place of Master of Woods and Waters in France, the devil take me
The Chouans |
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 Plutarch's Lives by A. H. Clough: was fighting. And though this sort of love was so approved among them,
that the most virtuous matrons would make professions of it to young
girls, yet rivalry did not exist, and if several men's fancies met in
one person, it was rather the beginning of an intimate friendship,
whilst they all jointly conspired to render the object of their
affection as accomplished as possible.
They taught them, also, to speak with a natural and graceful raillery,
and to comprehend much matter of thought in few words. For Lycurgus,
who ordered, as we saw, that a great piece of money should be but of an
inconsiderable value, on the contrary would allow no discourse to be
current which did not contain in few words a great deal of useful and
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