| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Tom Sawyer, Detective by Mark Twain: for all they was worth.
"This man here, Brace Dunlap, that's been sniveling
so about his dead brother that YOU know he never cared
a straw for, wanted to marry that young girl there,
and she wouldn't have him. So he told Uncle Silas he
would make him sorry. Uncle Silas knowed how powerful
he was, and how little chance he had against such a man,
and he was scared and worried, and done everything he could
think of to smooth him over and get him to be good to him:
he even took his no-account brother Jubiter on the farm
and give him wages and stinted his own family to pay them;
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Sarrasine by Honore de Balzac: all the great painters. On another, she was coyly turning her head as
she finished a roulade, and seemed to be listening to herself.
Sarrasine drew his mistress in all poses: he drew her unveiled,
seated, standing, reclining, chaste, and amorous--interpreting, thanks
to the delirious activity of his pencil, all the fanciful ideas which
beset our imagination when our thoughts are completely engrossed by a
mistress. But his frantic thoughts outran his pencil. He met La
Zambinella, spoke to her, entreated her, exhausted a thousand years of
life and happiness with her, placing her in all imaginable situations,
trying the future with her, so to speak. The next day he sent his
servant to hire a box near the stage for the whole season. Then, like
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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 Euthyphro by Plato: EUTHYPHRO: You understand me capitally, Socrates.
SOCRATES: Yes, my friend; the reason is that I am a votary of your
science, and give my mind to it, and therefore nothing which you say will
be thrown away upon me. Please then to tell me, what is the nature of this
service to the gods? Do you mean that we prefer requests and give gifts to
them?
EUTHYPHRO: Yes, I do.
SOCRATES: Is not the right way of asking to ask of them what we want?
EUTHYPHRO: Certainly.
SOCRATES: And the right way of giving is to give to them in return what
they want of us. There would be no meaning in an art which gives to any
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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 The Duchesse de Langeais by Honore de Balzac: "Well, I will make the advance," she told herself, as she
tossed on her bed and found no sleep there; "I will go to him.
I will not weary myself with holding out a hand to him, but I
will hold it out. A man of a thousand will see a promise of love
and constancy in every step that a woman takes towards him. Yes,
the angels must come down from heaven to reach men; and I wish to
be an angel for him."
Next day she wrote. It was a billet of the kind in which the
intellects of the ten thousand Sevignes that Paris now can number
particularly excel. And yet only a Duchesse de Langeais, brought
up by Mme la Princesse de Blamont-Chauvry, could have written
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