| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Lamentable Tragedy of Locrine and Mucedorus by William Shakespeare: Signior Strumbo, well met. I received your letters by your
man here, who told me a pitiful story of your anguish, and
so understanding your passions were so great, I came
hither speedily.
STRUMBO.
Oh my sweet and pigsney, the fecundity of my ingenie is
not so great, that may declare unto you the sorrowful sobs
and broken sleeps, that I suffered for your sake; and
therefore I desire you to receive me into your familiarity.
For your love doth lie,
As near and as nigh
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Facino Cane by Honore de Balzac: "The Provveditore called his servants, the palace was surrounded and
entered; I fought for my life that I might die beneath Bianca's eyes;
Bianca helped me to kill the Provveditore. Once before she had refused
flight with me; but after six months of happiness she wished only to
die with me, and received several thrusts. I was entangled in a great
cloak that they flung over me, carried down to a gondola, and hurried
to the Pozzi dungeons. I was twenty-two years old. I gripped the hilt
of my broken sword so hard, that they could only have taken it from me
by cutting off my hand at the wrist. A curious chance, or rather the
instinct of self-preservation, led me to hide the fragment of the
blade in a corner of my cell, as if it might still be of use. They
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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 Chronicles of the Canongate by Walter Scott: our own day, when, in fact, she had witnessed the revolutions of
centuries. She was much diverted when I required her to take
some solemn oath that she had not danced at the balls given by
Mary of Este, when her unhappy husband occupied Holyrood in a
species of honourable banishment; [The Duke of York afterwards
James II., frequently resided in Holyrood House when his religion
rendered him an object of suspicion to the English Parliament.]
or asked whether she could not recollect Charles the Second when
he came to Scotland in 1650, and did not possess some slight
recollections of the bold usurper who drove him beyond the Forth.
"BEAU COUSIN," she said, laughing, "none of these do I remember
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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 Vicar of Tours by Honore de Balzac: Birotteau, had neither home, nor means, nor furniture!
Fortunately Mademoiselle Salomon happened to drive past the house, and
the porter, who saw and comprehended the despair of the poor abbe,
made a sign to the coachman. After exchanging a few words with
Mademoiselle Salomon the porter persuaded the vicar to let himself be
placed, half dead as he was, in the carriage of his faithful friend,
to whom he was unable to speak connectedly. Mademoiselle Salomon,
alarmed at the momentary derangement of a head that was always feeble,
took him back at once to the Alouette, believing that this beginning
of mental alienation was an effect produced by the sudden news of Abbe
Poirel's nomination. She knew nothing, of course, of the fatal
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