| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Princess by Alfred Tennyson: ~Her~ countrywomen! she did not envy her.
"Who ever saw such wild barbarians?
Girls?--more like men!" and at these words the snake,
My secret, seemed to stir within my breast;
And oh, Sirs, could I help it, but my cheek
Began to burn and burn, and her lynx eye
To fix and make me hotter, till she laughed:
"O marvellously modest maiden, you!
Men! girls, like men! why, if they had been men
You need not set your thoughts in rubric thus
For wholesale comment." Pardon, I am shamed
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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 Red Inn by Honore de Balzac: still further complicated since my return.
Two days ago, therefore, I collected those of my friends to whom I
attribute most delicacy, probity, and honor. I invited two Englishmen,
the secretary of an embassy, and a puritan; a former minister, now a
mature statesman; a priest, an old man; also my former guardian, a
simple-hearted being who rendered so loyal a guardianship account that
the memory of it is still green at the Palais; besides these, there
were present a judge, a lawyer, and a notary,--in short, all social
opinions, and all practical virtues.
We began by dining well, talking well, and making some noise; then, at
dessert, I related my history candidly, and asked for advice,
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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 Research Magnificent by H. G. Wells: to the rich uncleanness of the most undignified fellow of Trinity.
And as an advocate and exponent of the richness of the lower levels
of life, as the declared antagonist of caste and of the uttermost
refinements of pride, Prothero went with Benham by way of Siberia to
the Chinese scene.
Their controversy was perceptible at every dinner-table in their
choice of food and drink. Benham was always wary and Prothero
always appreciative. It peeped out in the distribution of their
time, in the direction of their glances. Whenever women walked
about, Prothero gave way to a sort of ethnological excitement.
"That girl--a wonderful racial type." But in Moscow he was
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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 Mansfield Park by Jane Austen: They could not but hold her cheap on finding that she
had but two sashes, and had never learned French; and when
they perceived her to be little struck with the duet they
were so good as to play, they could do no more than make
her a generous present of some of their least valued toys,
and leave her to herself, while they adjourned to whatever
might be the favourite holiday sport of the moment,
making artificial flowers or wasting gold paper.
Fanny, whether near or from her cousins, whether in
the schoolroom, the drawing-room, or the shrubbery,
was equally forlorn, finding something to fear in
Mansfield Park |
