| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Illustrious Gaudissart by Honore de Balzac: salon was entered from an ante-chamber, which served as the dining-
room and communicated with the kitchen. This lower door, which was
wholly without the external charm usually seen even in the humblest
dwellings in Touraine, was covered by a mansard story, reached by a
stairway built on the outside of the house against the gable end and
protected by a shed-roof. A little garden, full of marigolds,
syringas, and elder-bushes, separated the house from the fields; and
all around the courtyard were detached buildings which were used in
the vintage season for the various processes of making wine.
CHAPTER IV
Margaritis was seated in an arm-chair covered with yellow Utrecht
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Selected Writings of Guy De Maupassant by Guy De Maupassant: saw three old heads in white caps, following each other one by
one, balancing themselves with different movements, one canting
to the right, while the other canted to the left. Then three
worthy women showed themselves, limping, dragging their legs
behind them, crippled by illness and deformed through old age,
three infirm old women, past service, the only three pensioners
who were able to walk in the establishment which Sister
Saint-Benedict managed.
"She had turned round to her invalids, full of anxiety for them,
and then seeing my quartermaster's stripes, she said to me: 'I am
much obliged to you for thinking of these poor women. They have
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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 Glimpses of the Moon by Edith Wharton: suggested, with a sweep of the hand around the beautiful shadowy
room. "A whole summer of it if we choose."
Susy smiled. "Apparently she didn't think that enough."
"What a doting mother! It shows the store she sets upon her
child."
"Well, don't you set store upon Clarissa?"
"Clarissa is exquisite; but her mother didn't mention her in
offering me this recompense."
Susy lifted her head again. "Whom did she mention?"
"Vanderlyn," said Lansing.
"Vanderlyn? Nelson?"
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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 Tragedy of Pudd'nhead Wilson by Mark Twain: if our plans had been covered with print."
"Well, do you mean to say there was actually anything in it?" asked Tom,
his incredulity beginning to weaken a little.
"There was this much in it," said Angelo: "what was told us
of our characters was minutely exact--we could have not have
bettered it ourselves. Next, two or three memorable things that
have happened to us were laid bare--things which no one present
but ourselves could have known about."
"Why, it's rank sorcery!" exclaimed Tom, who was now becoming very
much interested. "And how did they make out with what was going to
happen to you in the future?"
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