| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from In the Cage by Henry James: her afterwards, for she had an extraordinary way of keeping clues.
When she noticed she noticed; that was what it came to. There were
days and days, there were weeks sometimes, of vacancy. This arose
often from Mr. Buckton's devilish and successful subterfuges for
keeping her at the sounder whenever it looked as if anything might
arouse; the sounder, which it was equally his business to mind,
being the innermost cell of captivity, a cage within the cage,
fenced oft from the rest by a frame of ground glass. The counter-
clerk would have played into her hands; but the counter-clerk was
really reduced to idiocy by the effect of his passion for her. She
flattered herself moreover, nobly, that with the unpleasant
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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 American by Henry James: "It will be time enough to talk about waste three days hence,"
Newman answered; and clapping his hat on his head, he departed.
He did not immediately start for Fleurieres; he was too stunned and
wounded for consecutive action. He simply walked; he walked straight
before him, following the river, till he got out of the enceinte
of Paris. He had a burning, tingling sense of personal outrage.
He had never in his life received so absolute a check; he had never
been pulled up, or, as he would have said, "let down," so short;
and he found the sensation intolerable; he strode along, tapping the
trees and lamp-posts fiercely with his stick and inwardly raging.
To lose Madame de Cintre after he had taken such jubilant and triumphant
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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 Village Rector by Honore de Balzac: came near dying; I studied night and day; I did more than the
nature of my organs permitted. I wanted to pass such satisfying
examinations that my place in the Ecole would be not only secure,
but sufficiently advanced to release me from the cost of my
support, which I did not want you to pay any longer.
I triumphed! I tremble to-day as I think of the frightful
conscription (if I may so call it) of brains delivered over yearly
to the State by family ambition. By insisting on these severe
studies at the moment when a youth attains his various forms of
growth, the authorities produce secret evils and kill by midnight
study many precious faculties which later would have developed
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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 Cromwell by William Shakespeare: robbed us?
CROMWELL.
The Bandetti.
HODGE.
The Bandetti, do you call them? I know not what they are called
here, but I am sure we call them plain thieves in England. O
Thomas, that we were now at Putney, at the ale there.
CROMWELL.
Content thee, man; here set up these two bills,
And let us keep our standing on the bridge:
The fashion of this country is such,
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