| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Domestic Peace by Honore de Balzac: vacant settee near the fire; come and take it. When so many people are
ready to ascend the throne, and Royalty is the mania of the day, I
cannot imagine that you will refuse the title of Queen of the Ball
which your beauty may claim."
"I do not intend to dance, monsieur."
The curt tone of the lady's replies was so discouraging that the
Colonel found himself compelled to raise the siege. Martial, who
guessed what the officer's last request had been, and the refusal he
had met with, began to smile, and stroked his chin, making the diamond
sparkle which he wore on his finger.
"What are you laughing at?" said the Comtesse de Vaudremont.
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Daisy Miller by Henry James: Suddenly it seemed to pause.
"Are you sure it is your mother? Can you distinguish her in this
thick dusk?" Winterbourne asked.
"Well!" cried Miss Daisy Miller with a laugh; "I guess I know my own mother.
And when she has got on my shawl, too! She is always wearing my things."
The lady in question, ceasing to advance, hovered vaguely about the spot
at which she had checked her steps.
"I am afraid your mother doesn't see you," said Winterbourne.
"Or perhaps," he added, thinking, with Miss Miller, the joke
permissible--"perhaps she feels guilty about your shawl."
"Oh, it's a fearful old thing!" the young girl replied serenely.
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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 Lay Morals by Robert Louis Stevenson: the face of the pursuing curate. The next Lord's day the
curate was ill, and the kirk closed, but for all his ill
words, Mr. M'Brair abode unmolested in the house of
Montroymont.
HEATHERCAT
CHAPTER III - THE HILL-END OF DRUMLOWE
THIS was a bit of a steep broken hill that overlooked upon
the west a moorish valley, full of ink-black pools. These
presently drained into a burn that made off, with little
noise and no celerity of pace, about the corner of the hill.
On the far side the ground swelled into a bare heath, black
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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 Black Arrow by Robert Louis Stevenson: concord in their opinion; but rebellion travelleth ever downward
from above; and when Dick, Tom, and Harry take them to their bills,
look ever narrowly to see what lord is profited thereby. Now, Sir
Daniel, having once more joined him to the Queen's party, is in ill
odour with the Yorkist lords. Thence, Bennet, comes the blow - by
what procuring, I yet seek; but therein lies the nerve of this
discomfiture."
"An't please you, Sir Oliver," said Bennet, "the axles are so hot
in this country that I have long been smelling fire. So did this
poor sinner, Appleyard. And, by your leave, men's spirits are so
foully inclined to all of us, that it needs neither York nor
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