| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from House of Seven Gables by Nathaniel Hawthorne: return, to see Italy, and part of France and Germany. At a later
period he had spent some months in a community of Fourierists.
Still more recently he had been a public lecturer on Mesmerism,
for which science (as he assured Phoebe, and, indeed, satisfactorily
proved, by putting Chanticleer, who happened to be scratching near
by, to sleep) he had very remarkable endowments.
His present phase, as a daguerreotypist, was of no more importance
in his own view, nor likely to be more permanent, than any of the
preceding ones. It had been taken up with the careless alacrity of
an adventurer, who had his bread to earn. It would be thrown aside
as carelessly, whenever he should choose to earn his bread by some
 House of Seven Gables |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Illustrious Gaudissart by Honore de Balzac: upon it suitably. He asked nothing, however, from the republicans. In
the first place, he inclined in republican ideas,--the only ones,
according to guadissardian philosophy, which could bring about a
rational equality. Besides which he had already dipped into the
conspiracies of the French "carbonari"; he had been arrested, and
released for want of proof; and finally, as he called the newspaper
proprietors to observe, he had lately grown a mustache, and needed
only a hat of certain shape and a pair of spurs to represent, with due
propriety, the Republic.
CHAPTER II
For one whole week this commanding genius went every morning to be
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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 Life and Adventures of Santa Claus by L. Frank Baum: blue eyes.
And thus for a moment they remained, the nymphs filled with surprise
and consternation, but the brow of the Master Woodsman gradually
clearing as he gazed intently upon the beautiful immortal who had
wilfully broken the Law. Then the great Ak, to the wonder of all,
laid his hand softly on Necile's flowing locks and kissed her on her
fair forehead.
"For the first time within my knowledge," said he, gently, "a nymph
has defied me and my laws; yet in my heart can I find no word of
chiding. What is your desire, Necile?"
"Let me keep the child!" she answered, beginning to tremble and
 The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus |
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 Lemorne Versus Huell by Elizabeth Drew Stoddard: went to the beach. She engaged me every moment when at home, and I
faithfully performed all my tasks. I clapped to the door on self-
investigation--locked it against any analysis or reasoning upon any
circumstance connected with Mr. Uxbridge. The only piece of
treachery to my code that I was guilty of was the putting of the
leaf which I brought home on Sunday between the leaves of that poem
whose motto is,
"Mariana in the moated grange."
On Saturday morning, nearly a week after I saw him on my walk,
Aunt Eliza proposed that we should go to Turo Street on a shopping
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