| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Maid Marian by Thomas Love Peacock: for your sake, your daughter's husband to the earldom of Huntingdon:
should that never be, should it be the will of fate that we must live
and die in the greenwood, I will live and die MAID MARIAN."[4]
[4] And therefore is she called Maid Marian
Because she leads a spotless maiden life
And shall till Robin's outlaw life have end.
Old Play.
"A pretty resolution," said the baron, "if Robin will let you keep it."
"I have sworn it," said Robin. "Should I expose her tenderness
to the perils of maternity, when life and death may hang on shifting
at a moment's notice from Sherwood to Barnsdale, and from Barnsdale
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from A Voyage to Abyssinia by Father Lobo: the convenience of receiving the tribute with greater exactness,
there being a large trade carried on here with the Abyssins. The
Turks of Suaquem have gardens on the firm land, not above a musket
shot from the island, which supply them with many excellent herbs
and fruits, of which I doubt whether there be not a greater quantity
on this little spot than on the whole coast of Africa besides, from
Melinda to Suez. For if we except the dates which grow between Suez
and Suaquem, the ground does not yield the least product; all the
necessaries of life, even water, is wanting. Nothing can support
itself in this region of barrenness but ostriches, which devour
stones, or anything they meet with; they lay a great number of eggs,
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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 Wheels of Chance by H. G. Wells: Milton. Then two women weeping together, and a knightly figure in
the background dressed in a handsome Norfolk jacket, still
conspicuously new. He would conceal his feeling until the very
end. Then, leaving, he would pause in the doorway in such an
attitude as Mr. George Alexander might assume, and say, slowly
and dwindlingly: "Be kind to her--BE kind to her," and so depart,
heartbroken to the meanest intelligence. But that was a matter
for the future. He would have to begin discussing the return
soon. There was no traffic along the road, and he came up beside
her (he had fallen behind in his musing). She began to talk. "Mr.
Denison," she began, and then, doubtfully, "That is your name?
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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 Elixir of Life by Honore de Balzac: before his term of life was out.
But whether because the Abbot was every whit as clever as Don
Juan himself, or Dona Elvira possessed more discretion or more
virtue than Spanish wives are usually credited with, Don Juan was
compelled to spend his declining years beneath his own roof, with
no more scandal under it than if he had been an ancient country
parson. Occasionally he would take wife and son to task for
negligence in the duties of religion, peremptorily insisting that
they should carry out to the letter the obligations imposed upon
the flock by the Court of Rome. Indeed, he was never so well
pleased as when he had set the courtly Abbot discussing some case
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