| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Tom Sawyer, Detective by Mark Twain: in it!"
Well, sir, you could a heard a pin drop. And the old man
he sunk down kind of bewildered in his seat and Aunt Sally
and Benny didn't know it, because they was so astonished
and staring at Tom with their mouths open and not knowing
what they was about. And the whole house the same.
I never seen people look so helpless and tangled up,
and I hain't ever seen eyes bug out and gaze without a blink
the way theirn did. Tom says, perfectly ca'm:
"Your honor, may I speak?"
"For God's sake, yes--go on!" says the judge, so astonished
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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 Purse by Honore de Balzac: lighted, and without waiting for the bell to ring, she opened the
door of the outer room, where she set the lamp down. The sound of
a kiss given and received found an echo in Hippolyte's heart. The
young man's impatience to see the man who treated Adelaide with
so much familiarity was not immediately gratified; the newcomers
had a conversation, which he thought very long, in an undertone,
with the young girl.
At last Mademoiselle de Rouville returned, followed by two men,
whose costume, countenance, and appearance are a long story.
The first, a man of about sixty, wore one of the coats invented,
I believe, for Louis XVIII., then on the throne, in which 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 Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare: For faire without, the faire within to hide:
That Booke in manies eyes doth share the glorie,
That in Gold claspes, Lockes in the Golden storie:
So shall you share all that he doth possesse,
By hauing him, making your selfe no lesse
Nurse. No lesse, nay bigger: women grow by men
Old La. Speake briefly, can you like of Paris loue?
Iuli. Ile looke to like, if looking liking moue.
But no more deepe will I endart mine eye,
Then your consent giues strength to make flye.
Enter a Seruing man.
Romeo and Juliet |
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 An Historical Mystery by Honore de Balzac: "Ah!" exclaimed the young man, in a natural way, and without seeming
at all annoyed.
Players of ecarte often have a sense of inward disaster when some
unknown person sits down at the same table with them, whose manners,
look, voice, and method of shuffling the cards, all, to their fancy,
foretell defeat. The instant Michu looked at the young man he felt an
inward and prophetic collapse. He was struck by a fatal presentiment;
he had a sudden confused foreboding of the scaffold. A voice told him
that that dandy would destroy him, although there was nothing whatever
in common between them. For this reason his answer was rude; he was
and he wished to be forbidding.
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