| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Duchesse de Langeais by Honore de Balzac: object of general curiosity, better deserved attention than any
of the idols that Paris needs must set up to worship for a brief
space, for the city is vexed by periodical fits of craving, a
passion for engouement and sham enthusiasm, which must be
satisfied. The Marquis was the only son of General de
Montriveau, one of the ci-devants who served the Republic nobly,
and fell by Joubert's side at Novi. Bonaparte had placed his son
at the school at Chalons, with the orphans of other generals who
fell on the battlefield, leaving their children under the
protection of the Republic. Armand de Montriveau left school
with his way to make, entered the artillery, and had only reached
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Early Short Fiction of Edith Wharton by Edith Wharton: probable, even if she DID, in some miraculous way, remember an
Allusion, it would be only to find that Osric Dane used a
different volume (Mrs. Leveret was convinced that literary people
always carried them), and would consequently not recognise her
quotations.
Mrs. Leveret's sense of being adrift was intensified by the
appearance of Mrs. Ballinger's drawing-room. To a careless eye
its aspect was unchanged; but those acquainted with Mrs.
Ballinger's way of arranging her books would instantly have
detected the marks of recent perturbation. Mrs. Ballinger's
province, as a member of the Lunch Club, was the Book of the Day.
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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 All's Well That Ends Well by William Shakespeare: [Exeunt BERTRAM and LAFEU.]
HELENA.
O, were that all!--I think not on my father;
And these great tears grace his remembrance more
Than those I shed for him. What was he like?
I have forgot him; my imagination
Carries no favour in't but Bertram's.
I am undone: there is no living, none,
If Bertram be away. It were all one
That I should love a bright particular star,
And think to wed it, he is so above me:
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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 Main Street by Sinclair Lewis: out for. I'll never read anything but the sporting-page again.
Will converted me on our Colorado trip. There were so
many mousey tourists who were afraid to get out of the motor
'bus that I decided to be Annie Oakley, the Wild Western
Wampire, and I bought oh! a vociferous skirt which revealed
my perfectly nice ankles to the Presbyterian glare of all the
Ioway schoolma'ams, and I leaped from peak to peak like the
nimble chamoys, and---- You may think that Herr Doctor
Kennicott is a Nimrod, but you ought to have seen me daring
him to strip to his B. V. D.'s and go swimming in an icy
mountain brook."
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