| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Fisherman's Luck by Henry van Dyke: FRAGRARIA VIRGINIANA,--and then, amid wars and rumours of wars,
Doctor Butler's happiness was secure. That new berry was so much
richer and sweeter and more generous than the familiar FRAGRARIA
VESCA of Europe, that it attracted the sincere interest of all
persons of good taste. It inaugurated a new era in the history of
the strawberry. The long lost masterpiece of Paradise was restored
to its true place in the affections of man.
Is there not a touch of merry contempt for all the vain
controversies and conflicts of humanity in the grateful ejaculation
with which the old doctor greeted that peaceful, comforting gift of
Providence?
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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 Boys' Life of Abraham Lincoln by Helen Nicolay: decide between becoming a blacksmith or a lawyer; and when chance
seemed to offer a middle course, and he tried to be a merchant,
the wish to study law had certainly not faded from his mind.
There is a story that while cleaning up the store, he came upon a
barrel which contained, among a lot of forgotten rubbish, some
stray volumes of Blackstone's "Commentaries," and that this lucky
find still further quickened his interest in the law. Whether
this tale be true or not it seems certain that during the time
the store was running its downward course from bad to worse, he
devoted a large part of his too abundant leisure to reading and
study of various kinds. People who knew him then have told how he
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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 Tristram Shandy by Laurence Sterne: and laying his hand gently upon the corporal's shoulder to temper the
interruption--leave it out entirely, Trim; a story passes very well without
these niceties, unless one is pretty sure of 'em--Sure of 'em! said the
corporal, shaking his head--
Right; answered my uncle Toby, it is not easy, Trim, for one, bred up as
thou and I have been to arms, who seldom looks further forward than to the
end of his musket, or backwards beyond his knapsack, to know much about
this matter--God bless your honour! said the corporal, won by the manner of
my uncle Toby's reasoning, as much as by the reasoning itself, he has
something else to do; if not on action, or a march, or upon duty in his
garrison--he has his firelock, an' please your honour, to furbish--his
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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 A Drama on the Seashore by Honore de Balzac: really sombre, though tinted by the dreamer, and beautiful beneath its
scanty vegetation, the warm chamomile, the Venus' tresses with their
velvet leaves. Oh, lingering festival; oh, glorious decorations; oh,
happy exaltation of human forces! Once already the lake of Brienne had
spoken to me thus. The rock of Croisic may be perhaps the last of
these my joys. If so, what will become of Pauline?
"Have you had a good catch to-day, my man?" I said to the fisherman.
"Yes, monsieur," he replied, stopping and turning toward us the
swarthy face of those who spend whole days exposed to the reflection
of the sun upon the water.
That face was an emblem of long resignation, of the patience of a
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