| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Complete Poems of Longfellow by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow: What is it, then?
FRA SEBASTIANO.
Vituperation; gall that might have spirited
From Aretino's pen.
MICHAEL ANGELO.
Name not that man!
A profligate, whom your Francesco Berni
Describes as having one foot in the brothel
And the other in the hospital; who lives
By flattering or maligning, as best serves
His purpose at the time. He writes to me
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Lemorne Versus Huell by Elizabeth Drew Stoddard: that I would not go to church, but walk into the fields. I had no
knowledge of the whereabouts of the fields; but I walked straight
forward, and after a while came upon some barren fields, cropping
with coarse rocks, along which ran a narrow road. I turned into it,
and soon saw beyond the rough coast the blue ring of the ocean--
vast, silent, and splendid in the sunshine. I found a seat on the
ruins of an old stone-wall, among some tangled bushes and briers.
There being no Aunt Eliza to pull through the surf, and no animated
bathers near, I discovered the beauty of the sea, and that I loved
it.
Presently I heard the steps of a horse, and, to my astonishment,
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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 Pierre Grassou by Honore de Balzac: went at once. When poor Fougeres had placed the work before him
Schinner, after a glance, pressed Fougeres' hand.
"You are a fine fellow," he said; "you've a heart of gold, and I must
not deceive you. Listen; you are fulfilling all the promises you made
in the studios. When you find such things as that at the tip of your
brush, my good Fougeres, you had better leave colors with Brullon, and
not take the canvas of others. Go home early, put on your cotton
night-cap, and be in bed by nine o'clock. The next morning early go to
some government office, ask for a place, and give up art."
"My dear friend," said Fougeres, "my picture is already condemned; it
is not a verdict that I want of you, but the cause of that verdict."
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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 Silverado Squatters by Robert Louis Stevenson: the part of our English hawthorn, and the buck-eyes were
putting forth their twisted horns of blossom: through all
this, we struggled toughly upwards, canted to and fro by the
roughness of the trail, and continually switched across the
face by sprays of leaf or blossom. The last is no great
inconvenience at home; but here in California it is a matter
of some moment. For in all woods and by every wayside there
prospers an abominable shrub or weed, called poison-oak,
whose very neighbourhood is venomous to some, and whose
actual touch is avoided by the most impervious.
The two houses, with their vineyards, stood each in a green
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