| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from First Inaugural Address by Abraham Lincoln: it may be overruled and never become a precedent for other cases,
can better be borne than could the evils of a different practice.
At the same time, the candid citizen must confess that if the policy
of the government, upon vital questions affecting the whole people,
is to be irrevocably fixed by decisions of the Supreme Court,
the instant they are made, in ordinary litigation between parties
in personal actions, the people will have ceased to be their own rulers,
having to that extent practically resigned their government into the hands
of that eminent tribunal. Nor is there in this view any assault upon
the court or the judges. It is a duty from which they may not shrink
to decide cases properly brought before them, and it is no fault of
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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 Figure in the Carpet by Henry James: "It's the very string," he said, "that my pearls are strung on!"
The reason of his note to me had been that he really didn't want to
give us a grain of succour - our density was a thing too perfect in
its way to touch. He had formed the habit of depending on it, and
if the spell was to break it must break by some force of its own.
He comes back to me from that last occasion - for I was never to
speak to him again - as a man with some safe preserve for sport. I
wondered as I walked away where he had got HIS tip.
CHAPTER V.
WHEN I spoke to George Corvick of the caution I had received he
made me feel that any doubt of his delicacy would be almost an
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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 Time Machine by H. G. Wells: grew more distinct, and then I caught the same queer sound and
voices I had heard in the Under-world. There were evidently
several of the Morlocks, and they were closing in upon me.
Indeed, in another minute I felt a tug at my coat, then something
at my arm. And Weena shivered violently, and became quite still.
`It was time for a match. But to get one I must put her down.
I did so, and, as I fumbled with my pocket, a struggle began in
the darkness about my knees, perfectly silent on her part and
with the same peculiar cooing sounds from the Morlocks. Soft
little hands, too, were creeping over my coat and back, touching
even my neck. Then the match scratched and fizzed. I held it
The Time Machine |
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 Master and Man by Leo Tolstoy: to and accustomed to. But there's nothing to be done, I shall
get used to the new things.'
'Sins?' he thought, and remembered his drunkenness, the money
that had gone on drink, how he had offended his wife, his
cursing, his neglect of church and of the fasts, and all the
things the priest blamed him for at confession. 'Of course they
are sins. But then, did I take them on of myself? That's
evidently how God made me. Well, and the sins? Where am I to
escape to?'
So at first he thought of what might happen to him that night,
and then did not return to such thoughts but gave himself up to
Master and Man |
