| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Amazing Interlude by Mary Roberts Rinehart: turned out - a square of folded gauze, soaked in some solution and then
dried, with tapes to tie it over the mouth and nose. To adjust them the
soldiers had but to stoop and wet them in the ever-present water in
the trench, and then to tie them on.
Sara Lee gave them out that night, and there was much mirth in the little
house, such mirth as there had not been since Henri went away. The
Belgians called it a bal masque, and putting them on bowed before one
another and requested dances, and even flirted coyly with each other over
their bits of white gauze. And in the very middle of the gayety some
one propounded one of Henri's idiotic riddles; and Sara Lee went across
to her little room and closed the door and stood there with her eyes
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Pathology of Lying, Etc. by William and Mary Healy: physician and pronounced mentally unsound. Then she told of
another engagement with the brother of her departed fiance, who
had discovered her real mother. The latter was going to leave
her 30,000 marks. He had formed a plot with the foster mother to
put Annie out of the way and to divide the money. He followed
her on the street and threw a drugged cloth over her head. She
fainted and was carried home. She said she brought action for
attempt to murder. (Whether this fiance and the rich mother were
real persons is not known.) Later in the same year, Annie being
again at large, a new father, der Graf von Woldau, appeared and
bought her beautiful clothes costing 100 marks. He wanted to
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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 De Profundis by Oscar Wilde: whose desire is to be something separate from himself, to be a
member of Parliament, or a successful grocer, or a prominent
solicitor, or a judge, or something equally tedious, invariably
succeeds in being what he wants to be. That is his punishment.
Those who want a mask have to wear it.
But with the dynamic forces of life, and those in whom those
dynamic forces become incarnate, it is different. People whose
desire is solely for self-realisation never know where they are
going. They can't know. In one sense of the word it is of course
necessary, as the Greek oracle said, to know oneself: that is the
first achievement of knowledge. But to recognise that the soul of
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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 Letters of Two Brides by Honore de Balzac: that of man's handiwork.
I was dressed to perfection, pensive, with set face (though inwardly
much tempted to laugh), under a lovely hat, my arms crossed. Would you
believe it? Not a single smile was thrown at me, not one poor youth
was struck motionless as I passed, not a soul turned to look again;
and yet the carriage proceeded with a deliberation worthy of my pose.
No, I am wrong, there was one--a duke, and a charming man--who
suddenly reined in as we went by. The individual who thus saved
appearances for me was my father, and he proclaimed himself highly
gratified by what he saw. I met my mother also, who sent me a
butterfly kiss from the tips of her fingers. The worthy Griffith, who
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