| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Ball at Sceaux by Honore de Balzac: yourself by provoking duels----"
"White hairs!" cried the sailor, interrupting him. "You lie in your
throat. They are only gray."
A quarrel thus begun had in a few seconds become so fierce that the
younger man forgot the moderation he had tried to preserve. Just as
the Comte de Kergarouet saw his niece coming back to them with every
sign of the greatest uneasiness, he told his antagonist his name,
bidding him keep silence before the young lady entrusted to his care.
The stranger could not help smiling as he gave a visiting card to the
old man, desiring him to observe that he was living at a country-house
at Chevreuse; and, after pointing this out to him, he hurried away.
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Sons of the Soil by Honore de Balzac: look.
"When you have served the coffee, leave the room," said the general to
the servants, "and see that the doors are shut."
Blondet, who had not yet seen the bailiff of Les Aigues, was
conscious, as he now saw him, of a totally different impression from
that conveyed by Sibilet. Just as the steward inspired distrust and
repulsion, so Michaud commanded respect and confidence. The first
attraction of his presence was a happy face, of a fine oval, pure in
outline, in which the nose bore part,--a regularity which is lacking
in the majority of French faces. Though the features were correct in
drawing, they were not without expression, due, perhaps, to the
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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 Options by O. Henry: herder, a Mexican they call John Sallies, and he saddles Ogden's
horse, and the sheriffs all ride tip close around him with their guns
in hand, ready to take their prisoner to town.
"Before starting, Ogden puts the ranch in John Sallies' hands and
gives him orders about the shearing and where to graze the sheep, just
as if he intended to be back in a few days. And a couple of hours
afterward one Percival Saint Clair, an ex-sheep-herder of the Rancho
Chiquito, might have been seen, with a hundred and nine dollars--wages
and blood-money--in his pocket, riding south on another horse
belonging to said ranch."
The red-faced man paused and listened. The whistle of a coming
Options |
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 Disputation of the Power and Efficacy of Indulgences by Dr. Martin Luther: predicandas verbum dei in aliis ecclesiis penitus silere iubent.
4. [54] Iniuria fit verbo dei, dum in eodem sermone equale vel
longius tempus impenditur veniis quam illi.
5. [55] Mens Pape necessario est, quod, si venie (quod minimum
est) una campana, unis pompis et ceremoniis celebrantur,
Euangelium (quod maximum est) centum campanis, centum pompis,
centum ceremoniis predicetur.
6. [56] Thesauri ecclesie, unde Pape dat indulgentias, neque satis
nominati sunt neque cogniti apud populum Christi.
7. [57] Temporales certe non esse patet, quod non tam facile eos
profundunt, sed tantummodo colligunt multi concionatorum.
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