| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from At the Sign of the Cat & Racket by Honore de Balzac: children." Augustine was little, or, to describe her more truly,
delicately made. Full of gracious candor, a man of the world could
have found no fault in the charming girl beyond a certain meanness of
gesture or vulgarity of attitude, and sometimes a want of ease. Her
silent and placid face was full of the transient melancholy which
comes over all young girls who are too weak to dare to resist their
mother's will.
The two sisters, always plainly dressed, could not gratify the innate
vanity of womanhood but by a luxury of cleanliness which became them
wonderfully, and made them harmonize with the polished counters and
the shining shelves, on which the old man-servant never left a speck
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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: The marquis looked into his hat again. "Madame de Cintre was
extremely fond of her father. If she knew of the existence of the few
written words of which you propose to make this scandalous use,
she would demand of you proudly for his sake to give it up to her,
and she would destroy it without reading it."
"Very possibly," Newman rejoined. "But she will not know.
I was in that convent yesterday and I know what SHE is doing.
Lord deliver us! You can guess whether it made me feel forgiving!"
M. de Bellegarde appeared to have nothing more to suggest;
but he continued to stand there, rigid and elegant, as a man who
believed that his mere personal presence had an argumentative value.
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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 Red Inn by Honore de Balzac: the night in writing to his mother.
"We shall both be free to-day," he said, smiling, when I went to see
him the next morning. "I am told that the general has signed your
pardon."
I was silent, and looked at him closely so as to carve his features,
as it were, on my memory. Presently an expression of disgust crossed
his face.
"I have been very cowardly," he said. "During all last night I begged
for mercy of these walls," and he pointed to the sides of his dungeon.
"Yes, yes, I howled with despair, I rebelled, I suffered the most
awful moral agony--I was alone! Now I think of what others will say of
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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 Timaeus by Plato: of the affections of particular parts, and the causes and agents of them,
as far as I am able. In the first place let us set forth what was omitted
when we were speaking of juices, concerning the affections peculiar to the
tongue. These too, like most of the other affections, appear to be caused
by certain contractions and dilations, but they have besides more of
roughness and smoothness than is found in other affections; for whenever
earthy particles enter into the small veins which are the testing
instruments of the tongue, reaching to the heart, and fall upon the moist,
delicate portions of flesh--when, as they are dissolved, they contract and
dry up the little veins, they are astringent if they are rougher, but if
not so rough, then only harsh. Those of them which are of an abstergent
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