| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Two Poets by Honore de Balzac: differences between the Paris trade and the business of a provincial
printing-house. The shades of opinion so sharply defined in the
country are blurred and lost in the great currents of Parisian
business life. Cointet Brothers set themselves deliberately to
assimilate all shades of monarchical opinion. They let every one know
that they fasted of a Friday and kept Lent; they haunted the
cathedral; they cultivated the society of the clergy; and in
consequence, when books of devotion were once more in demand, Cointet
Brothers were the first in this lucrative field. They slandered David,
accusing him of Liberalism, Atheism, and what not. How, asked they,
could any one employ a man whose father had been a Septembrist, a
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Alexandria and her Schools by Charles Kingsley: whenever we try to find a substitute for them in our educational
schemes, that we have as yet none? Because those old Greek stories do
represent the Deities as the archetypes, the kinsmen, the teachers, the
friends, the inspirers of men. Because while the schoolboy reads how
the Gods were like to men, only better, wiser, greater; how the Heroes
are the children of the Gods, and the slayers of the monsters which
devour the earth; how Athene taught men weaving, and Phoebus music, and
Vulcan the cunning of the stithy; how the Gods took pity on the noble-
hearted son of Danae, and lent him celestial arms and guided him over
desert and ocean to fulfil his vow--that boy is learning deep lessons of
metaphysic, more in accordance with the reine vernunft, the pure reason
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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 Tattine by Ruth Ogden [Mrs. Charles W. Ide]: and the blue is for you, Miss Tattine."
"Oh, Mrs. Kirk!" the three children exclaimed, with delight, and Mabel added
politely, "But do you really think you can spare them, Mrs. Kirk?"
"Why, of course she can! can't you, Mrs. Kirk?" cut in Rudolph warmly, for the
idea of relinquishing such a splendid gift was not for a moment to be thought
of. "I wonder how we can get them home," he added, by way of settling the
matter.
"Indade, thin, and I have this foine crate ready to go right in the back of
your cart," and there, to be sure, was a fine sort of cage with a board top
and bottom and laths at the sides, while other laths were lying ready to be
nailed into place after the geese should have been stowed away within it. 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 A Voyage to Abyssinia by Father Lobo: imagined, had advertised the Galles of our arrival. The fatigue we
had already suffered did not prevent our continuing our march all
night: at last we entered a plain, where our drivers told us we
might expect to be attacked by the Galles; nor was it long before
our own eyes convinced us that we were in great danger, for we saw
as we went along the dead bodies of a caravan who had been lately
massacred, a sight which froze our blood, and filled us with pity
and with horror. The same fate was not far from overtaking us, for
a troop of Galles, who were detached in search of us, missed us but
an hour or two. We spent the next night in the mountains, but when
we should have set out in the morning, were obliged to a fierce
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