| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Maitre Cornelius by Honore de Balzac: difficult to decipher among its wrinkles,--became distorted while her
brother explained to her the malady of which he was the victim, and
the extraordinary situation in which he found himself.
"Louis XI. and I," he said in conclusion, "have just been lying to
each other like two pedlers of coconuts. You understand, my girl, that
if he follows me, he will get the secret of the hiding-place. The king
alone can watch my wanderings at night. I don't feel sure that his
conscience, near as he is to death, can resist thirteen hundred
thousand crowns. We MUST be beforehand with him; we must find the
hidden treasure and send it to Ghent, and you alone--"
Cornelius stopped suddenly, and seemed to be weighing the heart of the
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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 Alkahest by Honore de Balzac: and lame, this woman remained all the longer unmarried because the
world obstinately refused to credit her with gifts of mind. Yet there
were men who were deeply stirred by the passionate ardor of that face
and its tokens of ineffable tenderness, and who remained under a charm
that was seemingly irreconcilable with such personal defects.
She was very like her grandfather, the Duke of Casa-Real, a grandee of
Spain. At this moment, when we first see her, the charm which in
earlier days despotically grasped the soul of poets and lovers of
poesy now emanated from that head with greater vigor than at any
former period of her life, spending itself, as it were, upon the void,
and expressing a nature of all-powerful fascination over men, though
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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 Off on a Comet by Jules Verne: In quick time an artillery-wagon was on the spot, and the men
lifted out a full-sized shot, weighing 200 lbs., which,
under ordinary circumstances, the cannon would carry about four miles.
It was proposed, by means of telescopes, to note the place
where the ball first touched the water, and thus to obtain
an approximation sufficiently accurate as to the true range.
Having been duly charged with powder and ball, the gun was raised to an angle
of something under 45 degrees, so as to allow proper development to the curve
that the projectile would make, and, at a signal from the major, the light
was applied to the priming.
"Heavens!" "By all that's good!" exclaimed both officers
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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 Early Short Fiction of Edith Wharton by Edith Wharton: winced at this--"and I think the business may still be arranged."
Meanwhile the agent of the Ten had yielded his place to a sharp-
featured shabby-looking fellow in black, dressed somewhat like a
lawyer's clerk, who laid a grimy hand on Tony's arm, and with
many apologetic gestures steered him through the crowd to the
doors of the church. The Count held him by the other arm, and in
this fashion they emerged on the square, which now lay in
darkness save for the many lights twinkling under the arcade and
in the windows of the gaming-rooms above it.
Tony by this time had regained voice enough to declare that he
would go where they pleased, but that he must first say a word to
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