| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Malbone: An Oldport Romance by Thomas Wentworth Higginson: seating herself at the open window.
"Why do they make them look so like tombs?" said Kate.
"Because," said her aunt, "most Americans pass from them to the
tomb, after eating such indigestible things. There is a wish
for a gentle transition."
"Aunt Jane," said Hope, "Mrs. Meredith asks to have a little
visit from Emilia. Do you think she had better go?"
"Mrs. Meredith?" asked Aunt Jane. "Is that woman alive yet?"
"Why, auntie!" said Kate. "We were talking about her only a
week ago."
"Perhaps so," conceded Aunt Jane, reluctantly. "But it seems
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Salome by Oscar Wilde: mal est entre dans le monde. Ne me parlez pas. Je ne veux pas
t'ecouter. Je n'ecoute que les paroles du Seigneur Dieu.
SALOME. Ton corps est hideux. Il est comme le corps d'un lepreux.
Il est comme un mur de platre ou les viperes sont passees, comme un
mur de platre ou les scorpions ont fait leur nid. Il est comme un
sepulcre blanchi, et qui est plein de choses degoutantes. Il est
horrible, il est horrible ton corps! . . . C'est de tes cheveux que
je suis amoureuse, Iokanaan. Tes cheveux ressemblent e des grappes
de raisins, e des grappes de raisins noirs qui pendent des vignes
d'Edom dans le pays des Edomites. Tes cheveux sont comme les cedres
du Liban, comme les grands cedres du Liban qui donnent de l'ombre
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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 Massimilla Doni by Honore de Balzac: expression, seemed to live in her gaze; he had not once looked round
at the prima donna.
"I need not ask you, /caro carino/, what was the result of my
negotiation," said Vendramin to Emilio. "Your pure and pious
Massimilla has been supremely kind--in short, she has been la Tinti?"
The Prince's reply was a shake of his head, full of the deepest
melancholy.
"Your love has not descended from the ethereal spaces where you soar,"
said Vendramin, excited by opium. "It is not yet materialized. This
morning, as every day for six months--you felt flowers opening their
scented cups under the dome of your skull that had expanded to vast
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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 The Purse by Honore de Balzac: stigmata of poverty are not altogether devoid of poetry in an
artist's eyes.
Mademoiselle Leseigneur herself opened the door. On recognizing
the young artist she bowed, and at the same time, with Parisian
adroitness, and with the presence of mind that pride can lend,
she turned round to shut the door in a glass partition through
which Hippolyte might have caught sight of some linen hung by
lines over patent ironing stoves, an old camp-bed, some wood-
embers, charcoal, irons, a filter, the household crockery, and
all the utensils familiar to a small household. Muslin curtains,
fairly white, carefully screened this lumber-room--a capharnaum,
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