| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Firm of Nucingen by Honore de Balzac: significant tone. "If the little Baroness was giddy, careless,
selfish, and incapable in practical matters, she was not accountable
for her sins; the responsibility is divided between the firm of
Adolphus and Company of Manheim and Baron d'Aldrigger with his blind
love for his wife. The Baroness was a gentle as a lamb; she had a soft
heart that was very readily moved; unluckily, the emotion never lasted
long, but it was all the more frequently renewed.
"When the Baron died, for instance, the Shepherdess all but followed
him to the tomb, so violent and sincere was her grief, but--next
morning there was green peas at lunch, she was fond of green peas, the
delicious green peas calmed the crisis. Her daughters and her servants
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Concerning Christian Liberty by Martin Luther: driven and tossed by the waves at Rome, so that the depths of the
sea press on you with infinite perils, and that you are labouring
under such a condition of misery that you need even the least
help from any the least brother, I do not seem to myself to be
acting unsuitably if I forget your majesty till I shall have
fulfilled the office of charity. I will not flatter in so serious
and perilous a matter; and if in this you do not see that I am
your friend and most thoroughly your subject, there is One to see
and judge.
In fine, that I may not approach you empty-handed, blessed
Father, I bring with me this little treatise, published under
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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 Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas: himself for that little treachery; but Buckingham was incapable
of going to any excess against a woman, particularly if that
woman was supposed to have acted from a feeling of jealousy.
This supposition appeared to her most reasonable. It seemed to
her that they wanted to revenge the past, and not to anticipate
the future. At all events, she congratulated herself upon having
fallen into the hands of her brother-in-law, with whom she
reckoned she could deal very easily, rather than into the hands
of an acknowledged and intelligent enemy.
"Yes, let us chat, brother," said she, with a kind of
cheerfulness, decided as she was to draw from the conversation,
The Three Musketeers |
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 Research Magnificent by H. G. Wells: back to Cambridge--changed.
Before they reached Moscow Benham was already becoming accustomed to
disregard Prothero. He was looking over him at the vast heaving
trouble of Russia, which now was like a sea that tumbles under the
hurrying darknesses of an approaching storm. In those days it
looked as though it must be an overwhelming storm. He was drinking
in the wide and massive Russian effects, the drifting crowds in the
entangling streets, the houses with their strange lettering in black
and gold, the innumerable barbaric churches, the wildly driven
droshkys, the sombre red fortress of the Kremlin, with its bulbous
churches clustering up into the sky, the crosses, the innumerable
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