| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Complete Poems of Longfellow by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow: As two women entered softly,
Passed the doorway uninvited,
Without word of salutation,
Without sign of recognition,
Sat down in the farthest corner,
Crouching low among the shadows.
From their aspect and their garments,
Strangers seemed they in the village;
Very pale and haggard were they,
As they sat there sad and silent,
Trembling, cowering with the shadows.
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Where There's A Will by Mary Roberts Rinehart: down the tray and got up.
"I--I hadn't connected her with the--the newspaper Miss
Jennings," he said, and lighted a cigarette over the lamp.
Something in his face startled me, I must say.
"You're not going to give up now?" I asked. I got up and put my
hand on his arm, and I think he was shaking. "If you do, I'll--
I'll go out and drown myself, head down, in the spring."
He had been going to run away--I saw it then--but he put a hand
over mine. Then he looked at the door where Miss Patty had gone
out and gave himself a shake.
"I'll stay," he said. "We'll fight it out on this line if it
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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 Mother by Owen Wister: much courage as he had caught him in the water and just as few clothes,
only it was so different. Richard makes it quite thrilling. And I
mentioned another to him. But he just went on shaving. And now he has gone
out walking, and I believe it's going to be something I would rather not
hear. But I mean to hear it."
At lunch Mrs. Field made a better meal, although it was clear to Mrs.
Davenport that Richard on returning from his walk had still kept his
intentions from Ethel. "She does not manage him in the least," Mrs.
Davenport declared to the other ladies, as Ethel and Richard started for
an afternoon drive together. "She will not know anything more when she
brings him back."
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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 Lady Baltimore by Owen Wister: and he certainly made no attempt to do so. Thus did we sit for some time,
hearing the piano and the company grow livelier and louder with solos,
and choruses, and laughter. By and by the shadow of the awning shifted,
causing me to look up, when I saw the shores slowly changing; the tide
had turned, and was beginning to run out. Land and water lay in immense
peace; the long, white, silent picture of the town with its steeples on
the one hand, and on the other the long, low shore, and the trees behind.
Into this rose the high voice of Gazza, singing in broken English,
"Razzla-dazzla, razzla-dazzla," while his hearers beat upon glasses with
spoons--at least so I conjectured.
"Aren't you coming, John?" asked Hortense, appearing at the companionway.
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