| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Voyage Out by Virginia Woolf: at all, and is reading his favourite Greek book to console himself--
and the others--no, Hirst," he wound up, "I don't find it simple
at all."
"I have a key," said Hirst cryptically. His chin was still upon
his knees and his eyes fixed in front of him.
A silence followed. Then Helen rose and bade them good-night.
"But," she said, "remember that you've got to come and see us."
They waved good-night and parted, but the two young men did not
go back to the hotel; they went for a walk, during which they
scarcely spoke, and never mentioned the names of the two women,
who were, to a considerable extent, the subject of their thoughts.
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Domestic Peace by Honore de Balzac: happiness, and was promising herself in her own mind that she would
exert the irresistible power her charms still had over him to make him
return to his wife.
"Oh! I will talk to him!" said she to Madame de Lansac.
"Do nothing of the kind, my dear!" cried the old lady, as she went
back to her armchair. "Choose a good husband, and shut your door to my
nephew. Believe me, my child, a wife cannot accept her husband's heart
as the gift of another woman; she is a hundred times happier in the
belief that she has reconquered it. By bringing my niece here I
believe I have given her an excellent chance of regaining her
husband's affection. All the assistance I need of you is to play the
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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 Maitre Cornelius by Honore de Balzac: The crowd presented effects that were no less picturesque. Certain
figures were so vaguely defined in the "chiaroscuro" that they seemed
like phantoms; whereas others, standing in a full gleam of the
scattered light, attracted attention like the principal heads in a
picture. Some statues seemed animated, some men seemed petrified. Here
and there eyes shone in the flutings of the columns, the floor
reflected looks, the marbles spoke, the vaults re-echoed sighs, the
edifice itself seemed endowed with life.
The existence of Peoples has no more solemn scenes, no moments more
majestic. To mankind in the mass, movement is needed to make it
poetical; but in these hours of religious thought, when human riches
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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 Europeans by Henry James: responsive spark. She touched her lips to a glass of wine,
and then she said, "Describe them. Give me a picture."
Felix drained his own glass. "Well, it 's in the country,
among the meadows and woods; a wild sort of place,
and yet not far from here. Only, such a road, my dear!
Imagine one of the Alpine glaciers reproduced in mud.
But you will not spend much time on it, for they want you
to come and stay, once for all."
"Ah," said the Baroness, "they want me to come and stay,
once for all? Bon."
"It 's intensely rural, tremendously natural; and all overhung with this
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