| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Cousin Betty by Honore de Balzac: by Raphael is in painting, the other is a copy. At what would you
value a copy of a Raphael? Thus Crevel's mansion was a splendid
example of the luxury of idiots, while Josepha's was a perfect model
of an artist's home.
"War is declared," said Crevel, going up to Madame Marneffe.
She rang the bell.
"Go and find Monsieur Berthier," said she to the man-servant, "and do
not return without him. If you had succeeded," said she, embracing
Crevel, "we would have postponed our happiness, my dear Daddy, and
have given a really splendid entertainment; but when a whole family is
set against a match, my dear, decency requires that the wedding shall
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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 Master of Ballantrae by Robert Louis Stevenson: window, and crying to him by the name of Mr. Bally, asked him to
step up and have a word.
"James," said he, when our persecutor had come in and closed the
door behind him, looking at me with a smile, as if he thought I was
to be humbled, "you brought me a complaint against Mr. Mackellar,
into which I have inquired. I need not tell you I would always
take his word against yours; for we are alone, and I am going to
use something of your own freedom. Mr. Mackellar is a gentleman I
value; and you must contrive, so long as you are under this roof,
to bring yourself into no more collisions with one whom I will
support at any possible cost to me or mine. As for the errand upon
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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 Two Poets by Honore de Balzac: helm of business, he had not cost his parent a farthing.
Now Nicolas Sechard's establishment hitherto had enjoyed a monopoly of
all the official printing in the department, besides the work of the
prefecture and the diocese--three connections which should prove
mighty profitable to an active young printer; but precisely at this
juncture the firm of Cointet Brothers, paper manufacturers, applied to
the authorities for the second printer's license in Angouleme.
Hitherto old Sechard had contrived to reduce this license to a dead
letter, thanks to the war crisis of the Empire, and consequent atrophy
of commercial enterprise; but he had neglected to buy up the right
himself, and this piece of parsimony was the ruin of the old business.
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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 Marvelous Land of Oz by L. Frank Baum: "What's happened?" asked the boy, a little ashamed of his recent exhibition.
"Why, the three pills are in the box again!" said the Scarecrow.
"Of course they are," the Woggle-Bug declared. "Didn't Tip wish that he'd
never swallowed one of them? Well, the wish came true, and he didn't swallow
one of them. So of course they are all three in the box."
"That may be; but the pill gave me a dreadful pain, just the same," said the
boy.
"Impossible!" declared the Woggle-
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Bug. "If you have never swallowed it, the pill can not have given you a
The Marvelous Land of Oz |
