| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from La Grenadiere by Honore de Balzac: original compact, were delicious moments for all three. Marie sprang
upon the bed to put his arms around his idolized mother, and Louis,
kneeling by the pillow, took her hand in his. Then came inquiries,
anxious as a lover's, followed by angelic laughter, passionate
childish kisses, eloquent silences, lisping words, and the little
ones' stories interrupted and resumed by a kiss, stories seldom
finished, though the listener's interest never failed.
"Have you been industrious?" their mother would ask, but in tones so
sweet and so kindly that she seemed ready to pity laziness as a
misfortune, and to glance through tears at the child who was satisfied
with himself.
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Catriona by Robert Louis Stevenson: besides with a natural genius for narration, so that the people seemed
to speak and the things to be done before your face. This gift of his
and my assiduity to listen brought us the more close together. I could
not honestly deny but what I liked him; I soon saw that he liked me;
and indeed, from the first I had set myself out to capture his good-
will. An odd circumstance (to be told presently) effected this beyond
my expectation; but even in early days we made a friendly pair to be a
prisoner and his gaoler.
I should trifle with my conscience if I pretended my stay upon the Bass
was wholly disagreeable. It seemed to me a safe place, as though I was
escaped there out of my troubles. No harm was to be offered me; a
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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 Beauty and The Beast by Bayard Taylor: her place like a man; he fought none the worse, let me tell you,
because he represented a woman, and (I may as well say it now) he
came home a Captain, without a left arm--but Melissa seems to have
three arms for his sake.
You have no idea what a confusion and lamentation there was all
over the State. A good many women were drafted, and those who
could neither get substitutes for love nor money, were marched to
Gaston, where the recruiting Colonel was considerate enough to give
them a separate camp. In a week, however, the word came from
Washington that the Army Regulations of the United States did not
admit of their being received; and they came home blessing Mr.
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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 Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe: were very terrible to me from the remembrance of the hazard I had
been in before, and my heart began to fail me; for I foresaw that
if I was driven into either of those currents, I should be carried
a great way out to sea, and perhaps out of my reach or sight of the
island again; and that then, as my boat was but small, if any
little gale of wind should rise, I should be inevitably lost.
These thoughts so oppressed my mind that I began to give over my
enterprise; and having hauled my boat into a little creek on the
shore, I stepped out, and sat down upon a rising bit of ground,
very pensive and anxious, between fear and desire, about my voyage;
when, as I was musing, I could perceive that the tide was turned,
Robinson Crusoe |
