| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Rewards and Fairies by Rudyard Kipling: French boarding-house on Fourth Street. I made out that his real
name was the Count Talleyrand de Perigord - a priest right
enough, but sorely come down in the world. He'd been King
Louis' Ambassador to England a year or two back, before the
French had cut off King Louis' head; and, by what I heard, that
head wasn't hardly more than hanging loose before he'd run back
to Paris and prevailed on Danton, the very man which did the
murder, to send him back to England again as Ambassador of the
French Republic! That was too much for the English, so they
kicked him out by Act of Parliament, and he'd fled to the
Americas without money or friends or prospects. I'm telling you
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from A Second Home by Honore de Balzac: November 1808 the Canon of Bayeux Cathedral who had been the keeper of
Madame Bontems' conscience and her daughter's, came to Paris, spurred
by the ambition to be at the head of a church in the capital--a
position which he regarded perhaps as the stepping-stone to a
bishopric. On resuming his former control of this wandering lamb, he
was horrified to find her already so much deteriorated by the air of
Paris, and strove to reclaim her to his chilly fold. Frightened by the
exhortations of this priest, a man of about eight-and-thirty, who
brought with him, into the circle of the enlightened and tolerant
Paris clergy, the bitter provincial catholicism and the inflexible
bigotry which fetter timid souls with endless exactions, Madame de
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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 Tour Through Eastern Counties of England by Daniel Defoe: the Duke of Buckingham, who with 500 horse were gotten together in
arms about Kingston in Surrey; but we had notice in a few days
after that they were defeated, and the Earl of Holland taken, who
was afterwards beheaded.
26th. The enemy now began to batter the walls, and especially on
the west side, from St. Mary's towards the north gate; and we were
assured they intended a storm; on which the engineers were directed
to make trenches behind the walls where the breaches should be
made, that in case of a storm they might meet with a warm
reception. Upon this, they gave over the design of storming. The
Lord Goring finding that the enemy had set the suburbs on fire
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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 Passionate Pilgrim by William Shakespeare: A brittle glass that's broken presently:
A doubtful good, a gloss, a glass, a flower,
Lost, vaded, broken, dead within an hour.
And as goods lost are seld or never found,
As vaded gloss no rubbing will refresh,
As flowers dead lie wither'd on the ground,
As broken glass no cement can redress,
So beauty blemish'd once's for ever lost,
In spite of physic, painting, pain and cost.
XIV.
Good night, good rest. Ah, neither be my share:
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