| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Pocket Diary Found in the Snow by Grace Isabel Colbron and Augusta Groner: woman not to leave the house for anything, as she might be sent for
to come to the police station at any moment. Then he went out into
the street with Amster. When they were outside in the sunlight, he
looked at the glove. It was a remarkably small size, made for a
man with a slender, delicate hand, not at all in accordance with the
large stout body of the man described by the landlady. Muller put
his hand into the glove and found something pushed up into the
middle finger. He took it out and found that it was a crumpled
tramway ticket.
"Look out for a shabby old closed coupe, with a driver about forty
years old who looks like a drunkard and wears a light overcoat. If
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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 Voyage Out by Virginia Woolf: She tried to discover why he was uneasy. Politics again?
What were those horrid people doing? She spent the whole morning
in discussing politics with her husband, and by degrees she became
deeply interested in what they were saying. But every now and then
what she was saying seemed to her oddly empty of meaning.
At luncheon it was remarked by several people that the visitors
at the hotel were beginning to leave; there were fewer every day.
There were only forty people at luncheon, instead of the sixty that
there had been. So old Mrs. Paley computed, gazing about her with her
faded eyes, as she took her seat at her own table in the window.
Her party generally consisted of Mr. Perrott as well as Arthur
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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 Tapestried Chamber by Walter Scott: The following narrative is given from the pen, so far as memory
permits, in the same character in which it was presented to the
author's ear; nor has he claim to further praise, or to be more
deeply censured, than in proportion to the good or bad judgment
which he has employed in selecting his materials, as he has
studiously avoided any attempt at ornament which might interfere
with the simplicity of the tale.
At the same time, it must be admitted that the particular class
of stories which turns on the marvellous possesses a stronger
influence when told than when committed to print. The volume
taken up at noonday, though rehearsing the same incidents,
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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 Madame Firmiani by Honore de Balzac: event by the various species which compose the genus Parisian,--
"Parisian" is here used merely to generalize our remark.
Therefore, if you should say to an individual of the species
Practical, "Do you know Madame Firmiani?" he would present that lady
to your mind by the following inventory: "Fine house in the rue du
Bac, salons handsomely furnished, good pictures, one hundred thousand
francs a year, husband formerly receiver-general of the department of
Montenotte." So saying, the Practical man, rotund and fat and usually
dressed in black, will project his lower lip and wrap it over the
upper, nodding his head as if to add: "Solid people, those; nothing to
be said against them." Ask no further; Practical men settle
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