| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Moran of the Lady Letty by Frank Norris: In fact a strange-looking craft had just made her appearance at
the entrance of Magdalena Bay.
VII
BEACH-COMBERS
Wilbur returned aft and joined Moran on the quarterdeck. She was
already studying the stranger through the glass.
"That's a new build of boat to me," she muttered, giving Wilbur
the glass. Wilbur looked long and carefully. The newcomer was of
the size and much the same shape as a caravel of the fifteenth
century--high as to bow and stern, and to all appearances as
seaworthy as a soup-tureen. Never but in the old prints had
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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 Recruit by Honore de Balzac: concessions required by those evil days, and without sacrificing
either her dignity as a woman, or her aristocratic beliefs, she
conciliated the good-will of those about her. Madame de Dey had fully
understood the difficulties that awaited her on coming to Carentan. To
seek to occupy a leading position would be daily defiance to the
scaffold; yet she pursued her even way. Sustained by her motherly
courage, she won the affections of the poor by comforting
indiscriminately all miseries, and she made herself necessary to the
rich by assisting their pleasures. She received the procureur of the
commune, the mayor, the judge of the district court, the public
prosecutor, and even the judges of the revolutionary tribunal.
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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 In the Cage by Henry James: our intense observer required a moment more to make it, and this
gave her ladyship time for a second thought. "Oh just wait!" The
white begemmed hand bared to write rose in sudden nervousness to
the side of the wonderful face which, with eyes of anxiety for the
paper on the counter, she brought closer to the bars of the cage.
"I think I must alter a word!" On this she recovered her telegram
and looked over it again; but she had a new, an obvious trouble,
and studied it without deciding and with much of the effect of
making our young woman watch her.
This personage, meanwhile, at the sight of her expression, had
decided on the spot. If she had always been sure they were in
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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 Salammbo by Gustave Flaubert: Schahabarim came back to her, and she resigned herself.
Matho still kept her little hands in his own; and from time to time,
in spite of the priest's command, she turned away her face and tried
to thrust him off by jerking her arms. He opened his nostrils the
better to breathe in the perfume which exhaled from her person. It was
a fresh, indefinable emanation, which nevertheless made him dizzy,
like the smoke from a perfuming-pan. She smelt of honey, pepper,
incense, roses, with another odour still.
But how was she thus with him in his tent, and at his disposal? Some
one no doubt had urged her. She had not come for the zaimph. His arms
fell, and he bent his head whelmed in sudden reverie.
Salammbo |
