The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Hidden Masterpiece by Honore de Balzac: There was love in the cry of Frenhofer as in that of Poussin, mingled
with jealous coquetry on behalf of his semblance of a woman; he seemed
to revel in the triumph which the beauty of his virgin was about to
win over the beauty of the living woman.
"Do not let him retract," cried Porbus, striking Poussin on the
shoulder. "The fruits of love wither in a day; those of art are
immortal."
"Can it be," said Gillette, looking steadily at Poussin and at Porbus,
"that I am nothing more than a woman to him?"
She raised her head proudly; and as she glanced at Frenhofer with
flashing eyes she saw her lover gazing once more at the picture he 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 Mayflower Compact: Sovereigne Lord, King James of England, France, and Ireland,
the eighteenth, and of Scotland, the fiftie-fourth,
Anno. Domini, 1620.
Mr. John Carver Mr. Stephen Hopkins
Mr. William Bradford Digery Priest
Mr. Edward Winslow Thomas Williams
Mr. William Brewster Gilbert Winslow
Isaac Allerton Edmund Margesson
Miles Standish Peter Brown
John Alden Richard Bitteridge
John Turner George Soule
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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 Phantasmagoria and Other Poems by Lewis Carroll: It were superfluous to state."
Roused into sudden passion, she
In tone of cold malignity:
"To others, yea: but not to thee."
But when she saw him quail and quake,
And when he urged "For pity's sake!"
Once more in gentle tones she spake.
"Thought in the mind doth still abide
That is by Intellect supplied,
And within that Idea doth hide:
"And he, that yearns the truth to know,
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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 Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin by Benjamin Franklin: The institution soon manifested its utility, was imitated by
other towns, and in other provinces. The libraries were augmented
by donations; reading became fashionable; and our people,
having no publick amusements to divert their attention from study,
became better acquainted with books, and in a few years were
observ'd by strangers to be better instructed and more intelligent
than people of the same rank generally are in other countries.
When we were about to sign the above-mentioned articles, which were
to be binding upon us, our heirs, etc., for fifty years, Mr. Brockden,
the scrivener, said to us, "You are young men, but it is scarcely
probable that any of you will live to see the expiration of the term
The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin |