| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Recruit by Honore de Balzac: That terrible magistrate was, in fact, alone with the countess, who
waited, trembling, till it should please him to depart.
"Citoyenne," he said, after a long silence in which there was
something terrifying, "I am here to enforce the laws of the Republic."
Madame de Dey shuddered.
"Have you nothing to reveal to me?" he demanded.
"Nothing," she replied, astonished.
"Ah! madame," cried the prosecutor, changing his tone and seating
himself beside her, "at this moment, for want of a word between us,
you and I may be risking our heads on the scaffold. I have too long
observed your character, your soul, your manners, to share the error
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Twilight Land by Howard Pyle: do.
That night he slept little or none, and when the seventh hour of
the morning came the castle began to rock and tremble, and there
stood the Demon, and his hair bristled and his eyes shone like
sparks of fire. "What hast thou for me to do?" said he, and the
poor Tailor could do nothing but look at him with a face as white
as dough.
"What hast thou for me to do?" said the Demon again, and then at
last the Tailor found his wits and his tongue from sheer terror.
"Look!" said he, "at the great mountain over yonder; remove it,
and make in its place a level plain with fields and orchards and
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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 Coxon Fund by Henry James: I thought again. "Monstrously!"
CHAPTER VIII
George Gravener didn't follow her, for late in September, after the
House had risen, I met him in a railway-carriage. He was coming up
from Scotland and I had just quitted some relations who lived near
Durham. The current of travel back to London wasn't yet strong; at
any rate on entering the compartment I found he had had it for some
time to himself. We fared in company, and though he had a blue-
book in his lap and the open jaws of his bag threatened me with the
white teeth of confused papers, we inevitably, we even at last
sociably conversed. I saw things weren't well with him, but I
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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 Moon-Face and Other Stories by Jack London: the burning. Instead of the masses against the classes, it is a class against
the classes. We, the guardians of human progress, are being singled out and
struck down. Law and order have failed.
The officials have begged me to keep this secret. I have done so, but can do
so no longer. It has become a question of public import, fraught with the
direst consequences, and I shall do my duty before I leave this world by
informing it of its peril. Do you, John, as my last request, make this public.
Do not be frightened. The fate of humanity rests in your hand. Let the press
strike off millions of copies; let the electric currents sweep it round the
world; wherever men meet and speak, let them speak of it in fear and
trembling. And then, when thoroughly aroused, let society arise in its might
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