| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Wheels of Chance by H. G. Wells: path to a personage in a perambulator. That healed him a little.
"'Gentleman wizzer bicitle,'--'bloomin' Dook'--I can't look so
very seedy," he said to himself.
"I WONDER--I should just like to know--"
There was something very comforting in the track of HER pneumatic
running straight and steady along the road before him. It must be
hers. No other pneumatic had been along the road that morning. It
was just possible, of course, that he might see her once more--
coming back. Should he try and say something smart? He speculated
what manner of girl she might be. Probably she was one of these
here New Women. He had a persuasion the cult had been maligned.
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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 Atheist's Mass by Honore de Balzac: himself.
He said nothing; he began to doubt whether he had really seen his
chief at Saint-Sulpice. Desplein would not have troubled himself
to tell Bianchon a lie, they knew each other too well; they had
already exchanged thoughts on quite equally serious subjects, and
discussed systems de natura rerum, probing or dissecting them
with the knife and scalpel of incredulity.
Three months went by. Bianchon did not attempt to follow the
matter up, though it remained stamped on his memory. One day that
year, one of the physicians of the Hotel-Dieu took Desplein by
the arm, as if to question him, in Bianchon's presence.
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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 Amazing Interlude by Mary Roberts Rinehart: mademoiselle, may take time."
It took time. Sara Lee, growing accustomed now to little rooms entirely
filled with men and typewriters, went from one office to another, walking
along the narrow pavements with Henri, through streets filled with
soldiers. Once they drew aside to let pass a procession of Belgian
refugees, those who had held to their village homes until bombardment
had destroyed them - stout peasant women in short skirts and with huge
bundles, old men, a few young ones, many children. The terror of the
early flight was not theirs, but there was in all of them a sort of
sodden hopelessness that cut Sara Lee to the heart. In an irregular
column they walked along, staring ahead but seeing nothing. Even the
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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 Princess by Alfred Tennyson: So fold thyself, my dearest, thou, and slip
Into my bosom and be lost in me.'
I heard her turn the page; she found a small
Sweet Idyl, and once more, as low, she read:
'Come down, O maid, from yonder mountain height:
What pleasure lives in height (the shepherd sang)
In height and cold, the splendour of the hills?
But cease to move so near the Heavens, and cease
To glide a sunbeam by the blasted Pine,
To sit a star upon the sparkling spire;
And come, for love is of the valley, come,
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