| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Paz by Honore de Balzac: The greenhouse concealed the garden wall on the northern side, the
opposite wall was covered with climbing plants trained upon poles
painted green and connected with crossway trellises. This lawn, this
world of flowers, the gravelled paths, the simulated forest, the
verdant palisades, were contained within the space of five and twenty
square rods, which are worth to-day four hundred thousand francs,--the
value of an actual forest. Here, in this solitude in the middle of
Paris, the birds sang, thrushes, nightingales, warblers, bulfinches,
and sparrows. The greenhouse was like an immense jardiniere, filling
the air with perfume in winter as in summer. The means by which its
atmosphere was made to order, torrid as in China or temperate as in
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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 Gods of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs: A great battleship, forging silent and unlighted through the
dark night, loomed close astern.
CHAPTER VIII
THE DEPTHS OF OMEAN
Now I realized why the black pirate had kept me engrossed
with his strange tale. For miles he had sensed the approach
of succour, and but for that single tell-tale glance the
battleship would have been directly above us in another moment,
and the boarding party which was doubtless even now swinging
in their harness from the ship's keel, would have swarmed our deck,
placing my rising hope of escape in sudden and total eclipse.
The Gods of Mars |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Poems by T. S. Eliot: A Greek was murdered at a Polish dance,
Another bank defaulter has confessed.
I keep my countenance, I remain self-possessed
Except when a street piano, mechanical and tired
Reiterates some worn-out common song
With the smell of hyacinths across the garden
Recalling things that other people have desired.
Are these ideas right or wrong?
III
The October night comes down; returning as before
Except for a slight sensation of being ill at ease
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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 Nana, Miller's Daughter, Captain Burle, Death of Olivier Becaille by Emile Zola: in at once. Oh, I certainly don't complain."
Another place was laid. Fauchery found himself next the Countess
Sabine, whose liveliness and gaiety surprised him when he remembered
her drooping, languid state in the austere Rue Miromesnil drawing
room. Daguenet, on the other hand, who was seated on Estelle's
left, seemed slightly put out by his propinquity to that tall,
silent girl. The angularity of her elbows was disagreeable to him.
Muffat and Chouard had exchanged a sly glance while Vandeuvres
continued joking about his coming marriage.
"Talking of ladies," Mme Hugon ended by saying, "I have a new
neighbor whom you probably know."
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