| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from At the Sign of the Cat & Racket by Honore de Balzac: perhaps help us to bring him back to you, and to punish him for the
audacity of his behavior to me. He will end by compromising me. I know
the world too well, my dear, to abandon myself to the discretion of a
too superior man. You should know that one may allow them to court
one, but marry them--that is a mistake! We women ought to admire men
of genius, and delight in them as a spectacle, but as to living with
them? Never.--No, no. It is like wanting to find pleasure in
inspecting the machinery of the opera instead of sitting in a box to
enjoy its brilliant illusions. But this misfortune has fallen on you,
my poor child, has it not? Well, then, you must try to arm yourself
against tyranny."
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Herodias by Gustave Flaubert: exultantly:
"Caesar is our friend! Agrippa has been imprisoned!"
"Who told thee that?"
"I know it!" she replied, adding: "It was because he coveted the crown
of Caligula."
While living upon the charity of Antipas and Herodias, Agrippa had
intrigued to become king, a title for which the tetrarch was as eager
as he. But if this news were true, no more was to be feared from
Agrippa's scheming.
"The dungeons of Tiberias are hard to open, and sometimes life itself
is uncertain within their depths," said Herodias, with grim
Herodias |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from A Daughter of Eve by Honore de Balzac: somewhere, like other men, and when they haven't a home of their own
they LODGE with their mistresses; which may seem to you rather loose,
but it is far more agreeable than lodging in a prison."
Fire was less red than Marie's cheeks.
"Will you have him for a victim? I can help you to terrify him,"
continued the count, not looking at his wife's face. "I'll put you in
the way of proving to him that he is being tricked like a child by
your brother-in-law du Tillet. That wretch is trying to put Nathan in
prison so as to make him ineligible to stand against him in the
electoral college. I know, through a friend of Florine, the exact sum
derived from the sale of her furniture, which she gave to Nathan 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 Moon-Face and Other Stories by Jack London: right kind, good ad, you know. And if yer not, why yer all right anyway. Yer
not our class, that's straight."
After her turn, which she did this time with the nerve of an old campaigner,
the manager returned to the charge; and after saying nice things and being
generally nice himself, he came to the point.
"You'll treat us well, I hope," he said insinuatingly. "Do the right thing by
us, and all that?"
"Oh," she answered innocently, "you couldn't persuade me to do another turn; I
know I seemed to take and that you'd like to have me, but I really, really
can't."
"You know what I mean," he said, with a touch of his old bulldozing manner.
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