| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Eve and David by Honore de Balzac: as the bills fall due.
"Burn this letter; say nothing to my mother and sister; for, I
confess it, I have counted upon you, upon the heroism known so
well to your despairing brother,
"LUCIEN DE RUBEMPRE."
By this time Eve had recovered from her confinement.
"Your brother, poor fellow, is in desperate straits," David told her.
"I have sent him three bills for a thousand francs at one, two, and
three months; just make a note of them," and he went out into the
fields to escape his wife's questionings.
But Eve had felt very uneasy already. It was six months since Lucien
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Bab:A Sub-Deb, Mary Roberts Rinehart by Mary Roberts Rinehart: the female must not make advanses, but must remain still, although
suffering. I therfore sat still and stared hautily at the water cap
of my car, although seathing within, but without knowing the cause
of our rupture.
The Stranger came. I shrink in retrospect from calling him the
Theif, although correct in one sense. I saw Tom stareing at him
banefully, but I took no notice, merely getting out and kicking the
tires to see if air enough in them. I then got in and drove away.
The Stranger looked excited, and did not mention the weather as
customery. But at last he said:
"Somehow I gather, Little Sister, that you know a lot of things you
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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 Vicar of Tours by Honore de Balzac: above all for a woman, to see a feeling of repulsion on the faces of
others, when her true destiny is to move all hearts about her to
emotions of grace and love. One result of this inward trouble is that
an old maid's glance is always oblique, less from modesty than from
fear and shame. Such beings never forgive society for their false
position because they never forgive themselves for it.
Now it is impossible for a woman who is perpetually at war with
herself and living in contradiction to her true life, to leave others
in peace or refrain from envying their happines. The whole range of
these sad truths could be read in the dulled gray eyes of Mademoiselle
Gamard; the dark circles that surrounded those eyes told of the inward
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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 On Revenues by Xenophon: two philanthropic measures and certain details of supervision.[9]
[8] See Zurborg, "Comm." p. 24.
[9] See Aristot. "Pol." iv. 15, 3.
With regard to the other sources of revenue which I contemplate, I
admit, it is different. For these I recognise the necessity of a
capital[10] to begin with. I am not, however, without good hope that
the citizens of this state will contribute heartily to such an object,
when I reflect on the large sums subscribed by the state on various
late occasions, as, for instance, when reinforcements were sent to the
Arcadians under the command of Lysistratus,[11] and again at the date
of the generalship of Hegesileos.[12] I am well aware that ships of
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