| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Christ in Flanders by Honore de Balzac: The Convent of Mercy was built for sailors on this spot, where for
long afterwards (so it was said) the footprints of Jesus Christ could
be seen in the sand; but in 1793, at the time of the French invasion,
the monks carried away this precious relic, that bore witness to the
Saviour's last visit to earth.
There at the convent I found myself shortly after the Revolution of
1830. I was weary of life. If you had asked me the reason of my
despair, I should have found it almost impossible to give it, so
languid had grown the soul that was melted within me. The west wind
had slackened the springs of my intelligence. A cold gray light poured
down from the heavens, and the murky clouds that passed overhead gave
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Lemorne Versus Huell by Elizabeth Drew Stoddard: him; he could not but consider her violent, prejudiced, warped, and
whimsical. I told him that I had been taught to accept all that she
did on this basis. Would this explain to him my silence in regard
to her?
"Can you endure to live with her in Bond Street for the present,
or would you rather return to Waterbury?"
"She desires my company while she is in Newport only. I have
never been with her so long before."
"I understand her. Law is a game, in her estimation, in which
cheating can as easily be carried on as at cards."
"Her soul is in this case."
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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 Gorgias by Plato: state of innocence in which men had neither wants nor cares, in which the
earth brought forth all things spontaneously, and God was to man what man
now is to the animals. There were no great estates, or families, or
private possessions, nor any traditions of the past, because men were all
born out of the earth. This is what Plato calls the 'reign of Cronos;' and
in like manner he connects the reversal of the earth's motion with some
legend of which he himself was probably the inventor.
The question is then asked, under which of these two cycles of existence
was man the happier,--under that of Cronos, which was a state of innocence,
or that of Zeus, which is our ordinary life? For a while Plato balances
the two sides of the serious controversy, which he has suggested in a
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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 Selected Writings of Guy De Maupassant by Guy De Maupassant: sad. I experienced, in returning to the Continent, the peculiar
sensation of an illness which I believed had been cured, and a
dull pain which predicted that the seeds of the disease had not
been eradicated.
I then returned to Paris. At the end of a month I was very
dejected. It was in the autumn, and I determined to make, before
winter came, an excursion through Normandy, a country with which
I was unacquainted.
I began my journey, in the best of spirits, at Rouen, and for
eight days I wandered about, passive, ravished, and enthusiastic,
in that ancient city, that astonishing museum of extraordinary
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