| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Battle of the Books by Jonathan Swift: Temple himself. This Temple, having been educated and long
conversed among the Ancients, was, of all the Moderns, their
greatest favourite, and became their greatest champion.
Things were at this crisis when a material accident fell out. For
upon the highest corner of a large window, there dwelt a certain
spider, swollen up to the first magnitude by the destruction of
infinite numbers of flies, whose spoils lay scattered before the
gates of his palace, like human bones before the cave of some
giant. The avenues to his castle were guarded with turnpikes and
palisadoes, all after the modern way of fortification. After you
had passed several courts you came to the centre, wherein you might
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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 Street of Seven Stars by Mary Roberts Rinehart: eating his heart out with jealousy of Peter, vacillating between
the desire to see Harmony that night and fear lest Peter forbid
him the house permanently if he made the attempt. He had found a
picture of the Fraulein Engel, from the opera, in a magazine, and
was sitting with it open before him. Very deeply and really in
love was McLean that afternoon, and the Fraulein Engel and
Harmony were not unlike. The double doors between the reading
room and the reception room adjoining were open. McLean, lost in
a rosy future in which he and Harmony sat together for indefinite
periods, with no Peter to scowl over his books at them, a future
in which life was one long piano-violin duo, with the candles in
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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 Water-Babies by Charles Kingsley: may be only a variety produced by difference of climate!"
And having bagged his bat, up he got, and on he went; while all the
people ran, being in none the better humour for having their temple
smashed for the sake of three obscure species of Podurella, and a
Buddhist bat.
"Well," thought Tom, "this is a very pretty quarrel, with a good
deal to be said on both sides. But it is no business of mine."
And no more it was, because he was a water-baby, and had the
original sow by the right ear; which you will never have, unless
you be a baby, whether of the water, the land, or the air, matters
not, provided you can only keep on continually being a baby.
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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 Little Rivers by Henry van Dyke: that may be necessary to catch the fish. The father has received
the new title of "governor," indicating not less, but more
authority, and has called in new instructors to carry on the boy's
education: real Adirondack guides--old Sam Dunning and one-eyed
Enos, the last and laziest of the Saranac Indians. Better men will
be discovered for later trips, but none more amusing, and none
whose woodcraft seems more wonderful than that of this queerly
matched team, as they make the first camp in a pelting rain-storm
on the shore of Big Clear Pond. The pitching of the tents is a
lesson in architecture, the building of the camp-fire a victory
over damp nature, and the supper of potatoes and bacon and fried
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