| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Mysterious Island by Jules Verne: do it! Well, I will go alone to Granite House."
"No, no! Cyrus," answered the reporter, "you must not expose yourself!
Your courage would be of no avail. The villains are evidently watching the
corral, they are hidden in the thick woods which surround it, and if you go
we shall soon have to regret two misfortunes instead of one!"
"But Neb?" repeated the engineer. "It is now four-and-twenty hours since
he has had any news of us! He will be sure to come!"
"And as he will be less on his guard than we should be ourselves," added
Spilett, "he will be killed!"
"Is there really no way of warning him?"
While the engineer thought, his eyes fell on Top, who, going backwards
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from King Henry VI by William Shakespeare: Do me but right, and you must all confess
That I was not ignoble of descent,
And meaner than myself have had like fortune.
But as this title honours me and mine,
So your dislikes, to whom I would be pleasing,
Doth cloud my joys with danger and with sorrow.
KING EDWARD.
My love, forbear to fawn upon their frowns.
What danger or what sorrow can befall thee
So long as Edward is thy constant friend
And their true sovereign, whom they must obey?
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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 Marriage Contract by Honore de Balzac: "But," she said, "explain to me why the creation of this entail should
have calmed the storm at once."
"It relieves their distrust of you and your daughter. An entail is
unchangeable; neither husband nor wife can touch that capital."
"Then this arrangement is positively insulting!"
"No; we call it simply precaution. The old fellow has caught you in a
net. If you refuse to consent to the entail, he can reply: 'Then your
object is to squander the fortune of my client, who, by the creation
of this entail, is protected from all such injury as securely as if
the marriage took place under the "regime dotal."'"
Solonet quieted his own scruples by reflecting: "After all, these
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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 Mysterious Island by Jules Verne: had only been a pleasure to him.
Herbert, a gallant boy, already remarkably well informed in the natural
sciences, would render greater service to the common cause.
Neb was devotion personified. Clever, intelligent, indefatigable, robust,
with iron health, he knew a little about the work of the forge, and could
not fail to be very useful in the colony.
As to Pencroft, he had sailed over every sea, a carpenter in the
dockyards in Brooklyn, assistant tailor in the vessels of the state,
gardener, cultivator, during his holidays, etc., and like all seamen, fit
for anything, he knew how to do everything.
It would have been difficult to unite five men, better fitted to struggle
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