| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from A Sentimental Journey by Laurence Sterne: this, he avail'd himself of it; and, taking an occasion when the
states were assembled at Rennes, the Marquis, attended with his two
boys, entered the court; and having pleaded the right of an ancient
law of the duchy, which, though seldom claim'd, he said, was no
less in force, he took his sword from his side: - Here, said he,
take it; and be trusty guardians of it, till better times put me in
condition to reclaim it.
The president accepted the Marquis's sword: he staid a few minutes
to see it deposited in the archives of his house - and departed.
The Marquis and his whole family embarked the next clay for
Martinico, and in about nineteen or twenty years of successful
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Paz by Honore de Balzac: expressly to lead an orchestra as noisy as the disorderly audience,
and to set the time for the galop, that witches' dance, which was one
of Auber's triumphs, for it did not really take form or poesy till the
grand galop in "Gustave" was given to the world. That tremendous
finale might serve as the symbol of an epoch in which for the last
fifty years all things have hurried by with the rapidity of a dream.
Now, it happened that the grave Thaddeus, with one divine and
immaculate image in his heart, proposed to Malaga, the queen of the
carnival dances, to spend an evening at the Musard ball; because he
knew the countess, disguised to the teeth, intended to come there with
two friends, all three accompanied by their husbands, and look on at
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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 The Contrast by Royall Tyler: is lost here; the girls have taste, and I am very happy
to find they have adopted the elegant London fashion
of looking back, after a genteel fellow like me has
passed them.--Ah! who comes here? This, by his
awkwardness, must be the Yankee colonel's servant.
I'll accost him.
Enter JONATHAN.
JESSAMY
Votre tres-humble serviteur, Monsieur. I under-
stand Colonel Manly, the Yankee officer, has the
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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 Cratylus by Plato: HERMOGENES: What do you mean?
SOCRATES: I mean to say that the word 'man' implies that other animals
never examine, or consider, or look up at what they see, but that man not
only sees (opope) but considers and looks up at that which he sees, and
hence he alone of all animals is rightly anthropos, meaning anathron a
opopen.
HERMOGENES: May I ask you to examine another word about which I am
curious?
SOCRATES: Certainly.
HERMOGENES: I will take that which appears to me to follow next in order.
You know the distinction of soul and body?
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