| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Wrong Box by Stevenson & Osbourne: before was a young barrister of the name of Gideon Forsyth.
About three o'clock of the eventful day when the magistrate
tampered with the labels, a somewhat moody and distempered ramble
had carried Mr Forsyth to the corner of John Street; and about
the same moment Miss Hazeltine was called to the door of No. 16
by a thundering double knock.
Mr Gideon Forsyth was a happy enough young man; he would have
been happier if he had had more money and less uncle. One hundred
and twenty pounds a year was all his store; but his uncle, Mr
Edward Hugh Bloomfield, supplemented this with a handsome
allowance and a great deal of advice, couched in language that
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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 Lover's Complaint by William Shakespeare: There my white stole of chastity I daff'd,
Shook off my sober guards, and civil fears;
Appear to him, as he to me appears,
All melting; though our drops this difference bore:
His poison'd me, and mine did him restore.
'In him a plenitude of subtle matter,
Applied to cautels, all strange forms receives,
Of burning blushes or of weeping water,
Or swooning paleness; and he takes and leaves,
In either's aptness, as it best deceives,
To blush at speeches rank, to weep at woes,
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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 Plutarch's Lives by A. H. Clough: barley instead of wheat to be given to those companies that had turned
their backs. These rebukes were so bitter to the soldiers, that though a
great number of them were grievously wounded, yet they relate there was
not one to whom the general's oration was not more painful and smarting
than his wounds.
The day breaking, a scarlet toga, the sign of instant battle, was
displayed. The companies marked with ignominy, begged they might be
posted in the foremost place, and obtained their request. Then the
tribunes bring forth the rest of the forces, and draw them up. On news
of which, "O strange!" said Hannibal, "what will you do with this man,
who can bear neither good nor bad fortune? He is the only man who
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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 Early Short Fiction of Edith Wharton by Edith Wharton: experimenters in divers forms of expression. Coming and going
among so many, it was easy enough to pass unperceived; and one
afternoon Granice, arriving before Venn had returned home, found
himself alone in the work-shop, and quickly slipping into the
cupboard, transferred the drug to his pocket.
But that had happened ten years ago; and Venn, poor fellow, was
long since dead of his dragging ailment. His old father was
dead, too, the house in Stuyvesant Square had been turned into a
boarding-house, and the shifting life of New York had passed its
rapid sponge over every trace of their obscure little history.
Even the optimistic McCarren seemed to acknowledge the
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