| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from New Poems by Robert Louis Stevenson: But the loud stream of men day after day
And great dust columns of the common way
Between them grew and grew:
And he and she for evermore might yearn,
But to the spring the rivulets not return
Nor to the bosom comes the child again.
And he (O may we fancy so!),
He, feeling time forever flow
And flowing bear him forth and far away
From that dear ingle where his life began
And all his treasure lay -
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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 Drama on the Seashore by Honore de Balzac: they tell the fact that strikes them, and present it as they felt it.
This tale was made as sharply incisive as the blow of an axe.
"I shall not go to Batz," said Pauline, when we came to the upper
shore of the lake.
We returned to Croisic by the salt marshes, through the labyrinth of
which we were guided by our fisherman, now as silent as ourselves. The
inclination of our souls was changed. We were both plunged into gloomy
reflections, saddened by the recital of a drama which explained the
sudden presentiment which had seized us on seeing Cambremer. Each of
us had enough knowledge of life to divine all that our guide had not
told of that triple existence. The anguish of those three beings rose
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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 Tragedy of Pudd'nhead Wilson by Mark Twain: "Well, madam, the rest is not of much consequence. When we escaped from
that slavery at twelve years of age, we were in some respects men.
Experience had taught us some valuable things; among others,
how to take care of ourselves, how to avoid and defeat sharks
and sharpers, and how to conduct our own business for our own profit and
without other people's help. We traveled everywhere--years and years--
picking up smatterings of strange tongues, familiarizing ourselves
with strange sights and strange customs, accumulating an education
of a wide and varied and curious sort. It was a pleasant life.
We went to Venice--to London, Paris, Russia, India, China, Japan--"
At this point Nancy, the slave woman, thrust her head in at
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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 Caesar's Commentaries in Latin by Julius Caesar: Apud Helvetios longe nobilissimus fuit et ditissimus Orgetorix. Is
M. Messala, [et P.] M. Pisone consulibus regni cupiditate inductus
coniurationem nobilitatis fecit et civitati persuasit ut de finibus suis
cum omnibus copiis exirent: perfacile esse, cum virtute omnibus
praestarent, totius Galliae imperio potiri. Id hoc facilius iis
persuasit, quod undique loci natura Helvetii continentur: una ex parte
flumine Rheno latissimo atque altissimo, qui agrum Helvetium a Germanis
dividit; altera ex parte monte Iura altissimo, qui est inter Sequanos et
Helvetios; tertia lacu Lemanno et flumine Rhodano, qui provinciam nostram
ab Helvetiis dividit. His rebus fiebat ut et minus late vagarentur et
minus facile finitimis bellum inferre possent; qua ex parte homines
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