| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Altar of the Dead by Henry James: resentful. It was not in anger she had forsaken him; it was in
simple submission to hard reality, to the stern logic of life.
This came home to him when he sat with her again in the room in
which her late aunt's conversation lingered like the tone of a
cracked piano. She tried to make him forget how much they were
estranged, but in the very presence of what they had given up it
was impossible not to be sorry for her. He had taken from her so
much more than she had taken from him. He argued with her again,
told her she could now have the altar to herself; but she only
shook her head with pleading sadness, begging him not to waste his
breath on the impossible, the extinct. Couldn't he see that in
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from A Hero of Our Time by M.Y. Lermontov: knows algebra: in Moscow, evidently, the ladies
have entered upon the paths of erudition -- and
a good thing, too! The men here are generally so
unamiable, that, for a clever woman, it must be
intolerable to flirt with them. Princess Ligovski
is very fond of young people; Princess Mary looks
on them with a certain contempt -- a Moscow
habit! In Moscow they cherish only wits of
not less than forty."
"You have been in Moscow, doctor?"
"Yes, I had a practice there."
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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 Case of the Registered Letter by Grace Isabel Colbron and Augusta Groner: innocent in spite of everything. I believe him. I brought him up,
sir; I was like his own mother to him. He never knew any other
mother. He never lied to me, not once, when he was a little boy,
and I don't believe he'd lie to me now, now that he's a man of
forty-five. He says he did not kill John Siders. Oh, I know, even
without his saying it, that he would not do such a thing."
"Can you tell us anything more about the murder itself?" questioned
Muller gently. "Is there any possibility of suicide? Or was there
a robbery?"
"They say it was no suicide, sir, and that there was a large sum of
money missing. But why should Albert take any one else's money?
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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 Alcibiades II by Platonic Imitator: ALCIBIADES: Yes.
SOCRATES: And every disease ophthalmia?
ALCIBIADES: Surely not. But I scarcely understand what I mean myself.
SOCRATES: Perhaps, if you give me your best attention, 'two of us' looking
together, we may find what we seek.
ALCIBIADES: I am attending, Socrates, to the best of my power.
SOCRATES: We are agreed, then, that every form of ophthalmia is a disease,
but not every disease ophthalmia?
ALCIBIADES: We are.
SOCRATES: And so far we seem to be right. For every one who suffers from
a fever is sick; but the sick, I conceive, do not all have fever or gout or
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