| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Two Brothers by Honore de Balzac: life, fifty-one years old, and getting feeble,--for the way your
health is failing is frightful, I know that! and besides, you are none
too amusing--"
"But, Flore--"
"Let me alone!"
She went out, slamming the door with a violence that echoed through
the house, and seemed to shake it to its foundations. Jean-Jacques
softly opened the door and went, still more softly, into the kitchen
where she was muttering to herself.
"But, Flore," said the poor sheep, "this is the first time I have
heard of this wish of yours; how do you know whether I will agree to
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Fisherman's Luck by Henry van Dyke: primrose bloom of the first stars, and faint foregleamings of the
rising moon creeping over the hill behind us! What perfection of
companionship without words, as we rode together through a strange
land, along the edge of the dark!
When we finished the thirty-fifth mile, and drew up in the courtyard
of the station at Frydenlund, Graygown sprang out, with a little
sigh of regret.
"Is it last night," she cried, "or to-morrow morning? I have n't
the least idea what time it is; it seems as if we had been
travelling in eternity."
"It is just ten o'clock," I answered, "and the landlord says there
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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 The Vicar of Tours by Honore de Balzac: fish had an excellent flavor; the seasoning of a sauce was delicious;
Mademoiselle Gamard's capacities and virtues as mistress of a
household were great. He was sure of flattering the old maid's vanity
by praising the skill with which she made or prepared her preserves
and pickles and pates and other gastronomical inventions. To cap all,
the wily canon never left his landlady's yellow salon after dinner
without remarking that there was no house in Tours where he could get
such good coffee as that he had just imbibed.
Thanks to this thorough understanding of Mademoiselle Gamard's
character, and to the science of existence which he had put in
practice for the last twelve years, no matter of discussion on the
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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 Before Adam by Jack London: thing. And let me tell you that the flying and
crawling dreams of Big-Tooth were as vivid to him as
the falling-through-space dream is to you.
For Big-Tooth also had an other-self, and when he slept
that other-self dreamed back into the past, back to the
winged reptiles and the clash and the onset of dragons,
and beyond that to the scurrying, rodent-like life of
the tiny mammals, and far remoter still, to the
shore-slime of the primeval sea. I cannot, I dare not,
say more. It is all too vague and complicated and
awful. I can only hint of those vast and terrific
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