| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from An Old Maid by Honore de Balzac: popularly called modern civilization. Alencon, which up to 1816 could
boast of only two private carriages, saw, without amazement, in the
course of ten years, coupes, landaus, tilburies, and cabriolets
rolling through her streets. The burghers and the land-owners, alarmed
at first lest the price of everything should increase, recognized
later that this increase in the style of living had a contrary effect
upon their revenues. The prophetic remark of du Ronceret, "Du
Bousquier is a very strong man," was adopted by the whole country-
side.
But, unhappily for the wife, that saying has a double meaning. The
husband does not in any way resemble the public politician. This great
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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 Start in Life by Honore de Balzac: Turks, Greeks, and the devil, too, if the devil has money? From Zante
we were to skirt the coasts of Greece and tack about, on and off. Now
it happens that my name of Georges is famous in that country. I am,
such as you see me, the grandson of the famous Czerni-Georges who made
war upon the Porte, and, instead of crushing it, as he meant to do,
got crushed himself. His son took refuge in the house of the French
consul at Smyrna, and he afterwards died in Paris, leaving my mother
pregnant with me, his seventh child. Our property was all stolen by
friends of my grandfather; in fact, we were ruined. My mother, who
lived on her diamonds, which she sold one by one, married, in 1799, my
step-father, Monsieur Yung, a purveyor. But my mother is dead, and I
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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 Odyssey by Homer: then, the gods now mean that Ulysses should get home, we should
first send Mercury to the Ogygian island to tell Calypso that we
have made up our minds and that he is to return. In the meantime
I will go to Ithaca, to put heart into Ulysses' son Telemachus;
I will embolden him to call the Achaeans in assembly, and speak
out to the suitors of his mother Penelope, who persist in eating
up any number of his sheep and oxen; I will also conduct him to
Sparta and to Pylos, to see if he can hear anything about the
return of his dear father--for this will make people speak well
of him."
So saying she bound on her glittering golden sandals,
The Odyssey |
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 Arizona Nights by Stewart Edward White: But he's quit his gun fighting
As well as his booze.
And he's sold him his saddle,
His spurs, and his rope,
And there's no more cow-punching
And that's what I hope."
The alkali dust, swirled back by a little breeze, billowed up and
choked him. Behind, the mules coughed, their coats whitening
with the powder. Far ahead in the distance lay the westerly
mountains. They looked an hour away, and yet every man and beast
in the outfit knew that hour after hour they were doomed, by the
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