| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Bab:A Sub-Deb, Mary Roberts Rinehart by Mary Roberts Rinehart: "Did you ever read Pope, father?"
"Pope? Why I--probably, chicken. Why?"
"Then you know what he says: `Curse on all laws but those which
Love has made.'"
"Look here," he said, sudenly laying a hand on my brow. "I beleive
you are feverish."
"Not feverish, but in trouble," I explained. And so I told him the
story, not saying much of my deep Passion for Adrian, but merely
that I had formed an atachment for him which would persist during
Life. Although I had never yet exchanged a word with him.
Father listened and said it was indeed a sad story, and that he
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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 American by Henry James: and the amiable expression of Lord Deepmere. Noemie, on finding
herself suddenly confronted with Newman, who, like M. Nioche,
had risen from his seat, faltered for a barely perceptible instant.
She gave him a little nod, as if she had seen him yesterday,
and then, with a good-natured smile, "Tiens, how we keep meeting!"
she said. She looked consummately pretty, and the front of her
dress was a wonderful work of art. She went up to her father,
stretching out her hands for the little dog, which he submissively
placed in them, and she began to kiss it and murmur over it:
"To think of leaving him all alone,--what a wicked,
abominable creature he must believe me! He has been very unwell,"
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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 Commission in Lunacy by Honore de Balzac: the snow! A smile from below a fan contradicts the reserve of an
assumed attitude, and is worth all the unbridled tenderness of your
middle-class women with their mortgaged devotion; for, in love,
devotion is nearly akin to speculation.
"And, then, a woman of fashion, a Blamont-Chauvry, has her virtues
too! Her virtues are fortune, power, effect, a certain contempt of all
that is beneath her----"
"Thank you!" said Bianchon.
"Old curmudgeon!" said Rastignac, laughing. "Come--do not be so
common, do like your friend Desplein; be a Baron, a Knight of Saint-
Michael; become a peer of France, and marry your daughters to dukes."
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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 Fables by Robert Louis Stevenson: go round the corner to the police office, I feel sure it will
afford you relief to give yourself up."
Six weeks later, the physician was called to the town gaol.
"What is the meaning of this?" cried the young man. "Here am I
literally crusted with your paint; and I have broken my leg, and
committed all the crimes in the calendar, and must be hanged to-
morrow; and am in the meanwhile in a fear so extreme that I lack
words to picture it."
"Dear me," said the physician. "This is really amazing. Well,
well; perhaps, if you had not been painted, you would have been
more frightened still."
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