| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Edingburgh Picturesque Notes by Robert Louis Stevenson: quarter and among breweries and gas works. It is a house
of many memories. Great people of yore, kings and
queens, buffoons and grave ambassadors, played their
stately farce for centuries in Holyrood. Wars have been
plotted, dancing has lasted deep into the night, - murder
has been done in its chambers. There Prince Charlie held
his phantom levees, and in a very gallant manner
represented a fallen dynasty for some hours. Now, all
these things of clay are mingled with the dust, the
king's crown itself is shown for sixpence to the vulgar;
but the stone palace has outlived these charges. For
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Eve and David by Honore de Balzac: over the walls covered with inscriptions left by David's predecessors,
and tears filled the eyes that were red with weeping. She had sobbed
long and very bitterly, but the sight of her husband in a felon's cell
drew fresh tears.
"And the desire of fame may lead one to this!" she cried. "Oh! my
angel, give up your career. Let us walk together along the beaten
track; we will not try to make haste to be rich, David. . . . I need
very little to be very happy, especially now, after all that we have
been through. . . . And if you only knew--the disgrace of arrest is
not the worst. . . . Look."
She held out Lucien's letter, and when David had read it, she tried to
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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 Unconscious Comedians by Honore de Balzac: revealed in the art of dancing a poetry hitherto unperceived, she
would have been the leading talent; as it is, she is reduced to the
second line. But for all that, she fingers her thirty thousand francs
a year, and her faithful friend is a peer of France, very influential
in the Chamber. And see! there's a danseuse of the third order, who,
as a dancer, exists only through the omnipotence of a newspaper. If
her engagement were not renewed the ministry would have one more
journalistic enemy on its back. The corps de ballet is a great power;
consequently it is considered better form in the upper ranks of
dandyism and politics to have relations with dance than with song. In
the stalls, where the habitues of the Opera congregate, the saying
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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 At the Sign of the Cat & Racket by Honore de Balzac: family, humbly followed her younger sister, dressed in the simplest
fashion like a shadow necessary to the harmony of the picture.
Monsieur Guillaume had exerted himself to the utmost in the church to
get Virginie married before Augustine, but the priests, high and low,
persisted in addressing the more elegant of the two brides. He heard
some of his neighbors highly approving the good sense of Mademoiselle
Virginie, who was making, as they said, the more substantial match,
and remaining faithful to the neighborhood; while they fired a few
taunts, prompted by envy of Augustine, who was marrying an artist and
a man of rank; adding, with a sort of dismay, that if the Guillaumes
were ambitious, there was an end to the business. An old fan-maker
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