| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Lock and Key Library by Julian Hawthorne, Ed.: "Don't let anyone be in the same room with you at night,--you talk
in your sleep." And again: "What's done can't be undone; and I
tell you there's nothing against us unless the dead could come to
life." Here there was underlined in a better handwriting (a
female's), "They do!" At the end of the letter latest in date the
same female hand had written these words: "Lost at sea the 4th of
June, the same day as--"
I put down the letters, and began to muse over their contents.
Fearing, however, that the train of thought into which I fell might
unsteady my nerves, I fully determined to keep my mind in a fit
state to cope with whatever of marvelous the advancing night might
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Adieu by Honore de Balzac: had so decimated the hapless wretches lying on the banks of the river.
A few moments later, the gallop of two horses echoed over the snow,
and the wakened artillery men poured out a volley which ranged above
the heads of the sleeping men. The pace of the horses was so fleet
that their steps resounded like the blows of a blacksmith on his
anvil. The generous aide-de-camp was killed. The athletic grenadier
was safe and sound. Philippe in defending Hippolyte had received a
bayonet in his shoulder; but he clung to his horse's mane, and clasped
him so tightly with his knees that the animal was held as in a vice.
"God be praised!" cried the major, finding his orderly untouched, and
the carriage in its place.
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