| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Sons of the Soil by Honore de Balzac: "Not rich! when he stole twenty thousand francs a year from this
estate?"
"Monsieur le comte, I don't pretend to excuse him," replied Sibilet.
"I want to see Les Aigues prosperous, if it were only to prove
Gaubertin's dishonest; but we ought not to abuse him openly for he is
one of the most dangerous scoundrels to be found in all Burgundy, and
he is now in a position to injure you."
"In what way?" asked the general, sobering down.
"Gaubertin has control of nearly one third of the supplies sent to
Paris. As general agent of the timber business, he orders all the work
of the forests,--the felling, chopping, floating, and sending 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 Tour Through Eastern Counties of England by Daniel Defoe: surgeon." These, I say, are his own words, and I add nothing to
them but this, that it is happy for a town to have such a surgeon,
as it is for a surgeon to have such a character.
The country round Ipswich, as if qualified on purpose to
accommodate the town for building of ships, is an inexhaustible
store-house of timber, of which, now their trade of building ships
is abated, they send very great quantities to the king's building-
yards at Chatham, which by water is so little a way that they often
run to it from the mouth of the river at Harwich in one tide.
From Ipswich I took a turn into the country to Hadleigh,
principally to satisfy my curiosity and see the place where that
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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 Puck of Pook's Hill by Rudyard Kipling: 'About your not being traitors, I mean.'
Sir Richard smiled. 'The King sent no second summons
to Pevensey, nor did he ask why De Aquila had not
obeyed the first. Yes, that was Fulke's work. I know not
how he did it, but it was well and swiftly done.'
'Then you didn't do anything to his son?' said Una.
'The boy? Oh, he was an imp! He turned the keep
doors out of dortoirs while we had him. He sang foul
songs, learned in the Barons' camps - poor fool; he set the
hounds fighting in Hall; he lit the rushes to drive out, as
he said, the fleas; he drew his dagger on jehan, who
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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 American Notes by Rudyard Kipling: courses from one end to the other of a six-mile street. They
turn corners almost at right angles, cross other lines, and for
aught I know may run up the sides of houses. There is no visible
agency of their flight, but once in awhile you shall pass a
five-storied building humming with machinery that winds up an
everlasting wire cable, and the initiated will tell you that here
is the mechanism. I gave up asking questions. If it pleases
Providence to make a car run up and down a slit in the ground for
many miles, and if for twopence halfpenny I can ride in that car,
why shall I seek the reasons of the miracle? Rather let me look
out of the windows till the shops give place to thousands and
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