| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Village Rector by Honore de Balzac: what you create,--the new colors, the unexpected varieties, which
expand and grow beneath your eyes by the virtue of your care.
"My greenhouse, the one I watch, is filled with suffering souls.
The miseries I try to lessen sadden my heart; and when I take them
upon myself, when, after finding some young woman without clothing
for her babe, some old man wanting bread, I have supplied their
needs, the emotions their distress and its relief have caused me
do not suffice my soul. Ah, friend, I feel within me untold powers
--for evil, possibly,--which nothing can lower, which the sternest
commands of our religion are unable to abase! Sometimes, when I go
to see my mother, walking alone among the fields, I want to cry
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Ball at Sceaux by Honore de Balzac: a smile. Fine black hair, thick and strongly-arched eyebrows, lent her
countenance an expression of pride, to which her coquettish instincts
and her mirror had taught her to add terror by a stare, or gentleness
by the softness of her gaze, by the set of the gracious curve of her
lips, by the coldness or the sweetness of her smile. When Emilie meant
to conquer a heart, her pure voice did not lack melody; but she could
also give it a sort of curt clearness when she was minded to paralyze
a partner's indiscreet tongue. Her colorless face and alabaster brow
were like the limpid surface of a lake, which by turns is rippled by
the impulse of a breeze and recovers its glad serenity when the air is
still. More than one young man, a victim to her scorn, accused her of
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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 A Pair of Blue Eyes by Thomas Hardy: nineteen?'
I am nearly twenty-one.'
'Exactly half my age; I am forty-two.'
'By the way,' said Mr. Swancourt, after some conversation, 'you
said your whole name was Stephen Fitzmaurice, and that your
grandfather came originally from Caxbury. Since I have been
speaking, it has occurred to me that I know something of you. You
belong to a well-known ancient county family--not ordinary Smiths
in the least.'
'I don't think we have any of their blood in our veins.'
'Nonsense! you must. Hand me the "Landed Gentry." Now, let me
A Pair of Blue Eyes |
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 Jolly Corner by Henry James: reputation of cleverness, from nobody's really having any. It was
agreeable to him at this very moment to be sure that when he had
answered, after a brief demur, "Well, yes; so, precisely, you may
put it!" her imagination would still do him justice. He explained
that even if never a dollar were to come to him from the other
house he would nevertheless cherish this one; and he dwelt,
further, while they lingered and wandered, on the fact of the
stupefaction he was already exciting, the positive mystification he
felt himself create.
He spoke of the value of all he read into it, into the mere sight
of the walls, mere shapes of the rooms, mere sound of the floors,
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