| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Glimpses of the Moon by Edith Wharton: Nat's recognition, I mean--is not having to contrive and skimp,
and give up something every single minute. Just think--Nat has
even made special arrangements here in the pension, so that the
children all have second helpings to everything. And when I go
up to bed I can think of my music, instead of lying awake
calculating and wondering how I can make things come out at the
end of the month. Oh, Susy, that's simply heaven!"
Susy's heart contracted. She had come to her friend to be
taught again the lesson of indifference to material things, and
instead she was hearing from Grace Fulmer's lips the long-
repressed avowal of their tyranny. After all, that battle with
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Blix by Frank Norris: ten of a Monday morning, Condy's weekly holiday. The air was
neither cool nor warm, effervescent merely, brisk and full of the
smell of grass and of the sea. The sky was a speckless sheen of
pale blue. To their right, and not far off, was the bay, blue as
indigo. Alcatraz seemed close at hand; beyond was the enormous
green, red, and purple pyramid of Tamalpais climbing out of the
water, head and shoulders above the little foothills, and looking
out to the sea and to the west.
The Reservation itself was delightful. There were rows of the
officers' houses, all alike, drawn up in lines like an assembly of
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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 Ten Years Later by Alexandre Dumas: just tasted by the royal mouth.
This double favor, of a strangulation and a macaroni,
conferred upon the triangular house, gave poor Cropoli a
fancy to grace his hostelry with a pompous title. But his
quality of an Italian was no recommendation in these times,
and his small, well-concealed fortune forbade attracting too
much attention.
When he found himself about to die, which happened in 1643,
just after the death of Louis XIII., he called to him his
son, a young cook of great promise, and with tears in his
eyes, he recommended him to preserve carefully the secret of
Ten Years Later |
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 Commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians by Martin Luther: disturbed by outward differences of station or of occupation.
DRUNKENNESS, GLUTTONY
Paul does not say that eating and drinking are works of the flesh, but
intemperance in eating and drinking, which is a common vice nowadays,
is a work of the flesh. Those who are given to excess are to know that they
are not spiritual but carnal. Sentence is pronounced upon them that they
shall not inherit the kingdom of heaven. Paul desires that Christians
avoid drunkenness and gluttony, that they live temperate and sober lives,
in order that the body may not grow soft and sensual.
VERSE 21. Of the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in
the past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom
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