| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Rewards and Fairies by Rudyard Kipling: them back again.
At the top of Rabbit Shaw half-a-dozen men and a team of
horses stood round a forty-foot oak log in a muddy hollow. The
ground about was poached and stoached with sliding hoofmarks,
and a wave of dirt was driven up in front of the butt.
'What did you want to bury her for this way?' said Cattiwow.
He took his broad-axe and went up the log tapping it.
'She's sticked fast,' said 'Bunny' Lewknor, who managed the
other team.
Cattiwow unfastened the five wise horses from the tug. They
cocked their ears forward, looked, and shook themselves.
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Catherine de Medici by Honore de Balzac: Tours? There, without great expense, the Loire might have been made
accessible for the merchant service, and also for vessels-of-war of
light draught. There, too, the seat of government would have been safe
from the dangers of invasion. Had this been done, the northern cities
would not have required such vast sums of money spent to fortify them,
--sums as vast as were those expended on the sumptuous glories of
Versailles. If Louis XIV. had listened to Vauban, who wished to build
his great palace at Mont Louis, between the Loire and the Cher,
perhaps the revolution of 1789 might never have taken place.
These beautiful shores still bear the marks of royal tenderness. The
chateaus of Chambord, Amboise, Blois, Chenonceaux, Chaumont, Plessis-
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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 Maitre Cornelius by Honore de Balzac: young woman had cautiously examined the old seigneur, she drew a long
breath and raised her forehead, adorned with a precious jewel, toward
a picture of the Virgin; that simple movement, that attitude, the
moistened glance, revealed her life with imprudent naivete; had she
been wicked, she would certainly have dissimulated. The personage who
thus alarmed the lovers was a little old man, hunchbacked, nearly
bald, savage in expression, and wearing a long and discolored white
beard cut in a fan-tail. The cross of Saint-Michel glittered on his
breast; his coarse, strong hands, covered with gray hairs, which had
been clasped, had now dropped slightly apart in the slumber to which
he had imprudently yielded. The right hand seemed about to fall upon
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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 Tragedy of Pudd'nhead Wilson by Mark Twain: en I stood dah in de dark en look out, en dar in the moonlight,
right down under me 'uz one o' de twins a-cussin'--not much,
but jist a-cussin' soft--it 'uz de brown one dat 'uz cussin,'
'ca'se he 'uz hit in de shoulder. En Doctor Claypool he 'uz
a-workin' at him, en Pudd'nhead Wilson he 'uz a-he'pin', en ole
Jedge Driscoll en Pem Howard 'uz a-standin' out yonder a little piece
waitin' for 'em to get ready agin. En treckly dey squared off en give
de word, en _bang-bang_ went de pistols, en de twin he say,
'Ouch!'--hit him on de han' dis time --en I hear dat same bullet
go _spat!_ ag'in de logs under de winder; en de nex' time dey shoot,
de twin say, 'Ouch!' ag'in, en I done it too, 'ca'se de bullet glance'
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