| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Cousin Betty by Honore de Balzac: of melancholy.
"Josephine was not to compare with you!" said he. "Come; I will play a
game of whist with my brother and the children. I must try my hand at
the business of a family man; I must get Hortense a husband, and bury
the libertine."
His frankness so greatly touched poor Adeline, that she said:
"The creature has no taste to prefer any man in the world to my
Hector. Oh, I would not give you up for all the gold on earth. How can
any woman throw you over who is so happy as to be loved by you?"
The look with which the Baron rewarded his wife's fanaticism confirmed
her in her opinion that gentleness and docility were a woman's
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton: was already an historic document, though not, of course,
as venerable as certain other old family houses in
University Place and lower Fifth Avenue. Those were of
the purest 1830, with a grim harmony of cabbage-
rose-garlanded carpets, rosewood consoles, round-arched
fire-places with black marble mantels, and immense
glazed book-cases of mahogany; whereas old Mrs.
Mingott, who had built her house later, had bodily cast
out the massive furniture of her prime, and mingled
with the Mingott heirlooms the frivolous upholstery of
the Second Empire. It was her habit to sit in a window
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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 Stories From the Old Attic by Robert Harris: them, are somehow flung into the air for a short distance and then
fall to the ground, well, then perhaps that would be possible." The
professor looked expectantly and a bit condescendingly at the
traveler, hoping that the man would take this face-saving opportunity.
"No, no. You don't understand," said the traveler. "The
airplanes have powerful motors and the craft rise into the air, and
they stay up as long as they want, as long as the fuel holds out."
There were several audible "hmmphs" around the room.
"Tell us then," said another scholar, in a saccharine voice,
"how this device works. What makes it fly?"
"Well, I don't know exactly how it works. It has something to
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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 Michael Strogoff by Jules Verne: of her son. And it was fortunate that he was ignorant of
it. Could he have withstood this fresh trial?
Michael Strogoff urged on his horse, imbuing him with
all his own feverish impatience, requiring of him one thing
only, namely, to bear him rapidly to the next posting-house,
where he could be exchanged for a quicker conveyance.
At midnight he had cleared fifty miles, and halted at the
station of Koulikovo. But there, as he had feared, he
found neither horses nor carriages. Several Tartar de-
tachments had passed along the highway of the steppe.
Everything had been stolen or requisitioned both in the
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