| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Copy-Cat & Other Stories by Mary E. Wilkins Freeman: said Arnold Carruth, fiercely.
Lily Jennings lifted her chin and surveyed him
with queenly scorn. "And what are you?" said she.
"A little boy with curls and baby socks."
Arnold colored with shame and fury, and subsided.
"Mind you don't tell," he said, taking Johnny's cue.
"I sha'n't tell," replied Lily, with majesty. "But
you'll tell yourselves if you talk one side of trees
without looking on the other."
There was then only a few moments before
Madame's musical Japanese gong which announced
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Ion by Plato: him mad if he could only hear his embellishments of Homer. Socrates asks
whether he can speak well about everything in Homer. 'Yes, indeed he can.'
'What about things of which he has no knowledge?' Ion answers that he can
interpret anything in Homer. But, rejoins Socrates, when Homer speaks of
the arts, as for example, of chariot-driving, or of medicine, or of
prophecy, or of navigation--will he, or will the charioteer or physician or
prophet or pilot be the better judge? Ion is compelled to admit that every
man will judge of his own particular art better than the rhapsode. He
still maintains, however, that he understands the art of the general as
well as any one. 'Then why in this city of Athens, in which men of merit
are always being sought after, is he not at once appointed a general?' Ion
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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 Touchstone by Edith Wharton: near loving her; though even then his sentiment had lived only in
the intervals of its expression. Later, when to be loved by her
had been a state to touch any man's imagination, the physical
reluctance had, inexplicably, so overborne the intellectual
attraction, that the last years had been, to both of them, an
agony of conflicting impulses. Even now, if, in turning over old
papers, his hand lit on her letters, the touch filled him with
inarticulate misery. . . .
"She had so few intimate friends . . . that letters will be of
special value." So few intimate friends! For years she had had
but one; one who in the last years had requited her wonderful
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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 Madam How and Lady Why by Charles Kingsley: have at home--hard pebbles.
They grind them first in a mill. Then they mix them with
sulphuric acid and water, and that melts them down, and parts them
into two things. One is sulphate of lime (gypsum, as it is
commonly called), and which will not dissolve in water, and is of
little use. But the other is what is called superphosphate of
lime, which will dissolve in water; so that the roots of the
plants can suck it up: and that is one of the richest of manures.
Oh, I know: you put superphosphate on the grass last year.
Yes. But not that kind; a better one still. The superphosphate
from the Copiolites is good; but the superphosphate from fresh
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