| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Twenty Years After by Alexandre Dumas: "P.S. -- I sign my full name, for I should be vain if I
could suppose that after five years of absence you would
remember my initials."
The poor duke became perfectly giddy. What for five years he
had been wanting -- a faithful servant, a friend, a helping
hand -- seemed to have fallen from Heaven just when he
expected it the least.
"Oh, dearest Marie! she thinks of me, then, after five years
of separation! Heavens! there is constancy!" Then turning to
Grimaud, he said:
"And thou, my brave fellow, thou consentest thus to aid me?"
Twenty Years After |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Profits of Religion by Upton Sinclair: things got hotter yet, we read:
In the search for truth the Commissioners had to overcome many
obstacles, such as the burning of books, letters and documents,
and the obstinacy of witnesses, who declined to testify until
criminal proceedings were begun. The New Haven system has more
than three hundred subsidiary corporations in a web of entangling
alliances, many of which were seemingly planned, created and
manipulated by lawyers expressly retained for the purpose of
concealment or deception.
But do you imagine even that would sicken the pious jackals of
their offal? If so, you do not know the sturdiness of the pious
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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 Atheist's Mass by Honore de Balzac: go to satisfy his hunger?
"Bianchon, if you have sometimes seen me hard and bitter, it was
because I was adding my early sufferings on to the insensibility,
the selfishness of which I have seen thousands of instances in
the highest circles; or, perhaps, I was thinking of the obstacles
which hatred, envy, jealousy, and calumny raised up between me
and success. In Paris, when certain people see you ready to set
your foot in the stirrup, some pull your coat-tails, others
loosen the buckle of the strap that you may fall and crack your
skull; one wrenches off your horse's shoes, another steals your
whip, and the least treacherous of them all is the man whom you
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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 White Moll by Frank L. Packard: She smiled coldly. It was very like Nicky Viner - it was a habit
of his to talk to himself, she remembered. And, also, she had never
heard Nicky Viner do anything else but grumble and complain.
But she could not see fully into the other room, only into a corner
of it, for the two doors were located diagonally across from one
another, and her hand, in a startled way, went suddenly to her lips,
as though mechanically to help choke back and stifle the almost
overpowering impulse to cry out that arose within her. Nicky Viner
was not alone in there! A figure had come into her line of vision
in that other room, not Nicky Viner, not any of the gang - and she
stared now in incredulous amazement, scarcely able to believe her
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