| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Facino Cane by Honore de Balzac: Bianca helped me to kill the Provveditore. Once before she had refused
flight with me; but after six months of happiness she wished only to
die with me, and received several thrusts. I was entangled in a great
cloak that they flung over me, carried down to a gondola, and hurried
to the Pozzi dungeons. I was twenty-two years old. I gripped the hilt
of my broken sword so hard, that they could only have taken it from me
by cutting off my hand at the wrist. A curious chance, or rather the
instinct of self-preservation, led me to hide the fragment of the
blade in a corner of my cell, as if it might still be of use. They
tended me; none of my wounds were serious. At two-and-twenty one can
recover from anything. I was to lose my head on the scaffold. I
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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 Coxon Fund by Henry James: and chill penury, should fail to turn up. Ah the poor dear woman's
very particular--she says there must be no mistake."
I found all this quite thrilling--I took it in with avidity. "And
if she dies without doing anything, what becomes of the money?" I
demanded.
"It goes back to his family, if she hasn't made some other
disposition of it."
"She may do that then--she may divert it?"
"Her hands are not tied. She has a grand discretion. The proof is
that three months ago she offered to make the proceeds over to her
niece."
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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 Michael Strogoff by Jules Verne: out into the open.
It has been already said that Russians of all conditions
had found a place on the raft. Indeed, to the poor moujiks,
the women, old men, and children, were joined two or three
pilgrims, surprised on their journey by the invasion; a few
monks, and a priest. The pilgrims carried a staff, a gourd
hung at the belt, and they chanted psalms in a plaintive voice:
one came from the Ukraine, another from the Yellow sea,
and a third from the Finland provinces. This last, who was
an aged man, carried at his waist a little padlocked collecting-
box, as if it had been hung at a church door. Of all that
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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 La Grande Breteche by Honore de Balzac: need not say; she soon was possessed of every charm that desire can
lend to a woman in whatever rank of life. A fortnight after the
notary's visit, one evening, or rather one morning, in the small
hours, I said to Rosalie:
" 'Come, tell me all you know about Madame de Merret.'
" 'Oh!' she said, 'I will tell you; but keep the secret carefully.'
" 'All right, my child; I will keep all your secrets with a thief's
honor, which is the most loyal known.'
" 'If it is all the same to you,' said she, 'I would rather it should
be with your own.'
"Thereupon she set her head-kerchief straight, and settled herself to
La Grande Breteche |
