| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Michael Strogoff by Jules Verne: ing the traveler's list.
"As little as I can, and only for my own private use,"
answered the other, with a wink.
"He's a wag," said the Jew to the Persian.
"Or a spy," replied the other, lowering his voice. "We
had better take care, and not speak more than necessary.
The police are not over-particular in these times, and you
never can know with whom you are traveling."
In another corner of the compartment they were speaking
less of mercantile affairs, and more of the Tartar invasion
and its annoying consequences.
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Agesilaus by Xenophon: Leotychides claimed the succession as being the son of Agis, and
Agesilaus as the son of Archidamus. But the verdict of Lacedaemon
favoured Agesilaus as being in point of family and virtue
unimpeachable,[3] and so they set him on the throne. And yet, in this
princeliest of cities so to be selected by the noblest citizens as
worthy of highest privilege, argues, methinks conclusively, an
excellence forerunning exercise of rule.[4]
[3] For this matter see "Hell." III. iii. 1-6; V. iv. 13; Plut.
"Ages." iii. 3 (Cloigh, iv. 3 foll.); Paus. iii. 3.
[4] See Aristides ("Rhet." 776), who quotes the passage for its
measured cadence.
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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 Vendetta by Honore de Balzac: civil law as the annals of a people (contained, it may be, in one word
only,--Napoleon, Robespierre) are engraved on a tombstone. Ginevra
trembled. Like the dove on the face of the waters, having no place to
rest its feet but the ark, so Ginevra could take refuge only in the
eyes of Luigi from the cold and dreary waste around her.
The mayor assumed a stern, disapproving air, and his clerk looked up
at the couple with malicious curiosity. No marriage was ever so little
festal. Like other human beings when deprived of their accessories, it
became a simple act in itself, great only in thought.
After a few questions, to which the bride and bridegroom responded,
and a few words mumbled by the mayor, and after signing the registers,
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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 Travels with a Donkey in the Cevenne by Robert Louis Stevenson: trust to the dawn to call me early in the morning. But it was hard
to be annoyed by neighbours in such a great hotel.
A hollow underneath the oak was my bed. Before I had fed Modestine
and arranged my sack, three stars were already brightly shining,
and the others were beginning dimly to appear. I slipped down to
the river, which looked very black among its rocks, to fill my can;
and dined with a good appetite in the dark, for I scrupled to light
a lantern while so near a house. The moon, which I had seen a
pallid crescent all afternoon, faintly illuminated the summit of
the hills, but not a ray fell into the bottom of the glen where I
was lying. The oak rose before me like a pillar of darkness; and
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