| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Coxon Fund by Henry James: Mulville, whose hope for the best never twirled the thumbs of him
more placidly than when he happened to know the worst. He had
known it on the occasion I speak of--that is immediately after. He
was impenetrable then, but ultimately confessed. What he confessed
was more than I shall now venture to make public. It was of course
familiar to me that Saltram was incapable of keeping the
engagements which, after their separation, he had entered into with
regard to his wife, a deeply wronged, justly resentful, quite
irreproachable and insufferable person. She often appeared at my
chambers to talk over his lapses; for if, as she declared, she had
washed her hands of him, she had carefully preserved the water of
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from A Second Home by Honore de Balzac: June, in winter never put them out. To this day the enterprising
wayfarer who should approach the Marais along the quays, past the end
of the Rue du Chaume, the Rues de l'Homme Arme, des Billettes, and des
Deux-Portes, all leading to the Rue du Tourniquet, might think he had
passed through cellars all the way.
Almost all the streets of old Paris, of which ancient chronicles laud
the magnificence, were like this damp and gloomy labyrinth, where the
antiquaries still find historical curiosities to admire. For instance,
on the house then forming the corner where the Rue du Tourniquet
joined the Rue de la Tixeranderie, the clamps might still be seen of
two strong iron rings fixed to the wall, the relics of the chains put
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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 Westward Ho! by Charles Kingsley: perfectly plain suit of dove-color, which set off cunningly the
delicate proportions of his figure, and the delicate hue of his
complexion, which was shaded from the sun by a broad dove-colored
Spanish hat, with feather to match, looped up over the right ear
with a pearl brooch, and therein a crowned E, supposed by the
damsels of Bideford to stand for Elizabeth, which was whispered to
be the gift of some most illustrious hand. This same looping up
was not without good reason and purpose prepense; thereby all the
world had full view of a beautiful little ear, which looked as if
it had been cut of cameo, and made, as my Lady Rich once told him,
"to hearken only to the music of the spheres, or to the chants of
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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 Burning Daylight by Jack London: "You're a thousand times better than me--" he attempted to
interpolate, but was in turn interrupted.
"It isn't a question of such things. It's a simple and fairly
common situation that must be considered. I work for you. And
it isn't what you or I might think, but what other persons will
think. And you don't need to be told any more about that. You
know yourself."
Her cool, matter-of-fact speech belied her--or so Daylight
thought, looking at her perturbed feminineness, at the rounded
lines of her figure, the breast that deeply rose and fell, and at
the color that was now excited in her cheeks.
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