| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Illustrious Gaudissart by Honore de Balzac: poverty, and passions? Don't go off on exceptional points."
"No, no! no points," said the lunatic.
"Now, what's the result of all this?" cried Gaudissart. "To you, a
banker, I can sum up the profits in a few words. Listen. A man lives;
he has a future; he appears well; he lives, let us say, by his art; he
wants money; he tries to get it,--he fails. Civilization withholds
cash from this man whose thought could master civilization, and ought
to master it, and will master it some day with a brush, a chisel, with
words, ideas, theories, systems. Civilization is atrocious! It denies
bread to the men who give it luxury. It starves them on sneers and
curses, the beggarly rascal! My words may be strong, but I shall not
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Four Arthurian Romances by Chretien DeTroyes: and informed that a knight of great excellence was making his way
into the country to seek for the Queen, who was held by the
king's son, Meleagant; and he said to himself: "Upon my word, I
believe it is he, and I'll tell him so." So he said to him:
"Sire, do not conceal from me your business, if I promise to give
you the best advice I know. I too shall profit by any success
you may attain. Reveal to me the truth about your errand, that
it may be to your advantage as well as mine. I am persuaded that
you have come in search of the Queen into this land and among
these heathen people, who are worse than the Saracens." And the
knight replies: "For no other purpose have I come. I know not
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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 Message by Honore de Balzac: zealous doctor might lean to watch any change in a patient's
face. When she seemed to me to have opened her whole heart to
pain, to be deliberately plunging herself into misery with the
first delirious frenzy of despair, I caught at my opportunity,
and told her of the fears that troubled the poor dying man, told
her how and why it was that he had given me this fatal message.
Then her tears were dried by the fires that burned in the dark
depths within her. She grew even paler. When I drew the letters
from beneath my pillow and held them out to her, she took them
mechanically; then, trembling from head to foot, she said in a
hollow voice:
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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 Boys' Life of Abraham Lincoln by Helen Nicolay: ceremonies President Lincoln rose and said:
"Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this
continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to
the proposition that all men are created equal.
"Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that
nation, or any nation, so conceived and so dedicated, can long
endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have
come to dedicate a portion of that field as a final resting place
for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live.
It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.
"But in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate--we cannot consecrate-
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