| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Lamentable Tragedy of Locrine and Mucedorus by William Shakespeare: And if thou tendrest these my latest words,
As thou requirest my soul to be at rest,
As thou desirest thine own security,
Cherish and love thy new betrothed wife.
LOCRINE.
No longer let me well enjoy the crown,
Than I do honour peerless Gwendoline.
BRUTUS.
Camber.
CAMBER.
My Lord.
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Main Street by Sinclair Lewis: "Well, he don't. Looks soft to me. And they say he told
Del Snafflin, when he was getting a hair-cut on Saturday, that
he wished he could play the piano."
"Isn't it wonderful how much we all know about one another
in a town like this," said Carol innocently.
Kennicott was suspicious, but Aunt Bessie, serving the floating
island pudding, agreed, "Yes, it is wonderful. Folks can
get away with all sorts of meannesses and sins in these
terrible cities, but they can't here. I was noticing this tailor
fellow this morning, and when Mrs. Riggs offered to share her
hymn-book with him, he shook his head, and all the while we
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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 Pierrette by Honore de Balzac: daughter of Madame Roguin, the rich wife of a former notary in Paris,
whose name was never mentioned. Clever, delicate, and pretty, married
in the provinces to please her mother, who for special reasons did not
want her with her, and took her from a convent only a few days before
the wedding, Melanie Tiphaine considered herself an exile in Provins,
where she behaved to admiration. Handsomely dowered, she still had
hopes. As for Monsieur Tiphaine, his old father had made to his eldest
daughter Madame Guenee such advances on her inheritance that an estate
worth eight thousand francs a year, situated within fifteen miles of
Provins, was to come wholly to him. Consequently the Tiphaines would
possess, sooner or later, some forty thousand francs a year, and were
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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 Soul of a Bishop by H. G. Wells: Scrope held his hand out. "Take your life in your own way," he
said.
He turned to Eleanor. "Talk as you will," he said.
She clasped his hand with emotion. Then she turned to the
waiting young man, who saluted.
"You'll come back to supper?" Scrope said, without thinking out
the implications of that invitation.
She assented as carelessly. The fact that she and her lover
were to go, with their meeting legalized and blessed, excluded
all other considerations. The two young people turned to each
other.
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