| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Study of a Woman by Honore de Balzac: burgundus." We tremble when we see the structure we had so carefully
erected between the logs rolling down like an avalanche. Oh! to build
and stir and play with fire when we love is the material development
of our thoughts.
It was at this moment that I entered the room. Rastignac gave a jump
and said:--
"Ah! there you are, dear Horace; how long have you been here?"
"Just come."
"Ah!"
He took up the two letters, directed them, and rang for his servant.
"Take these," he said, "and deliver 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 The Pool in the Desert by Sara Jeanette Duncan: of the drill-book and the camp of exercise, proclaiming and
insisting upon what she would have done if she could only have
chosen for him. Anna Chichele saw things that way. With more than
a passable sense of all that was involved, if she could have made
her son an artist in life or a commander-in-chief, if she could have
given him the seeing eye or Order of the Star of India, she would
not have hesitated for an instant. Judy, with her single mind,
cried out, almost at sight of him, upon them both, I mean both Anna
and Sir Peter. Not that the boy carried his condemnation badly, or
even obviously; I venture that no one noticed it in the mess; but it
was naturally plain to those of us who were under the same. He had
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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 Ancient Regime by Charles Kingsley: though a questionably fantastic form, among the more serious and
earnest German nobility. Forgetful as they too often were of their
duty to their peoples--tyrannical, extravagant, debauched by French
opinions, French fashions, French luxuries, till they had begun to
despise their native speech, their native literature, almost their
native land, and to hide their native homeliness under a clumsy
varnish of French outside civilisation, which the years 1807-13
rubbed off them again with a brush of iron--they were yet Germans at
heart; and that German instinct for the unseen--call it enthusiasm,
mysticism, what you will, you cannot make it anything but a human
fact, and a most powerful, and (as I hold) most blessed fact--that
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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 Jerusalem Delivered by Torquato Tasso: Of some green forest where he used to feed,
His curled mane his shoulders broad doth charge
And from his lofty crest doth spring and spreed,
Thunder his feet, his nostrils fire breathe out,
And with his neigh the world resounds about.
LXXVI
So Argillan rushed forth, sparkled his eyes,
His front high lifted was, no fear therein,
Lightly he leaps and skips, it seems he flies,
He left no sign in dust imprinted thin,
And coming near his foes, he sternly cries,
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