| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Study of a Woman by Honore de Balzac: to Clochegourde."
"Are you aware, monsieur," resumed the marquise, turning to Eugene,
"that what you have just said is a great impertinence?"
"If I did not know the strictness of your principles," he answered,
naively, "I should think that you wished either to give me ideas which
I deny myself, or else to tear a secret from me. But perhaps you are
only amusing yourself with me."
The marquise smiled. That smile annoyed Eugene.
"Madame," he said, "can you still believe in an offence I have not
committed? I earnestly hope that chance may not enable you to discover
the name of the person who ought to have read that letter."
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Rinkitink In Oz by L. Frank Baum: to the palace to talk the matter over.
Zella was now crying because she had not sold her
honey and was unable to return to her parents on the
island of Regos, but the boy prince comforted her and
promised she should be protected until she could be
restored to her home. Rinkitink found Queen Cor's
purse, which she had had no time to take with her, and
gave Zella several gold pieces for the honey. Then Inga
ordered the palace servants to prepare a feast for all
the women and children of Pingaree and to prepare for
them beds in the great palace, which was large enough
 Rinkitink In Oz |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from A Sentimental Journey by Laurence Sterne: myself.
A FRAGMENT.
- THE town of Abdera, notwithstanding Democritus lived there,
trying all the powers of irony and laughter to reclaim it, was the
vilest and most profligate town in all Thrace. What for poisons,
conspiracies, and assassinations, - libels, pasquinades, and
tumults, there was no going there by day - 'twas worse by night.
Now, when things were at the worst, it came to pass that the
Andromeda of Euripides being represented at Abdera, the whole
orchestra was delighted with it: but of all the passages which
delighted them, nothing operated more upon their imaginations than
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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 Arizona Nights by Stewart Edward White: maybe a dozen of those T 0 cattle that had strayed out of that
Hahn country. Of the dozen there was five grown cows, and seven
yearlin's.
"My Lord, Jed," says Buck to me, "they's a heap of these
youngsters comin' over our way."
But still, as a young critter is more apt to stray than an old
one that's got his range established, we didn't lay no great
store by that neither. The Hahns took their bunch, and that's
all there was to it.
Next spring, though, we found a few more sleepers, and one day we
came on a cow that had gone dead lame. That was usual, too, but
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