| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin by Benjamin Franklin: every man at the first remove found under his plate an order
on a banker for the full amount of the unpaid remainder with interest.
He now told me he was about to return to Philadelphia, and should
carry over a great quantity of goods in order to open a store there.
He propos'd to take me over as his clerk, to keep his books,
in which he would instruct me, copy his letters, and attend
the store. He added that, as soon as I should be acquainted
with mercantile business, he would promote me by sending me with
a cargo of flour and bread, etc., to the West Indies, and procure
me commissions from others which would be profitable; and, if I
manag'd well, would establish me handsomely. The thing pleas'd me;
The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Familiar Studies of Men and Books by Robert Louis Stevenson: not very content, but with a glorious conscience; and as he
went homeward, he would sing his favourite, "How are Thy
servants blest, O Lord!" Jean, on the other hand, armed with
her "lines," confided her position to the master-mason, her
father, and his wife. Burns and his brother were then in a
fair way to ruin themselves in their farm; the poet was an
execrable match for any well-to-do country lass; and perhaps
old Armour had an inkling of a previous attachment on his
daughter's part. At least, he was not so much incensed by
her slip from virtue as by the marriage which had been
designed to cover it. Of this he would not hear a word.
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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 Michael Strogoff by Jules Verne: Ogareff's face with the knout; the second time at Tomsk,
when he was condemned by the Emir. They therefore
knew who he was and what depended on him.
Michael Strogoff rapidly made up his mind. "Nadia,"
said he, "when they step on board, ask them to come to
me!"
It was, in fact, Blount and Jolivet, whom the course of
events had brought to the port of Livenitchnaia, as it had
brought Michael Strogoff. As we know, after having been
present at the entry of the Tartars into Tomsk, they had
departed before the savage execution which terminated 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 Study of a Woman by Honore de Balzac: darkness about him. He is like all the ministers who have succeeded
one another in France since the Charter. A woman with principles could
not have fallen into better hands. It is certainly a great thing for a
virtuous woman to have married a man incapable of follies.
Occasionally some fops have been sufficiently impertinent to press the
hand of the marquise while dancing with her. They gained nothing in
return but contemptuous glances; all were made to feel the shock of
that insulting indifference which, like a spring frost, destroys the
germs of flattering hopes. Beaux, wits, and fops, men whose sentiments
are fed by sucking their canes, those of a great name, or a great
fame, those of the highest or the lowest rank in her own world, they
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