| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Several Works by Edgar Allan Poe: Fancy unto fancy, thinking what this ominous bird of yore--
What this grim, ungainly, ghastly, gaunt, and ominous bird of yore
Meant in croaking "Nevermore."
This I sat engaged in guessing, but no syllable expressing
To the fowl whose fiery eyes now burned into my bosom's core;
This and more I sat divining, with my head at ease reclining
On the cushion's velvet lining that the lamp-light gloated o'er,
But whose velvet violet lining with the lamp-light gloating o'er
She shall press, ah, nevermore!
Then, methought, the air grew denser, perfumed from an unseen censer
Swung by Seraphim whose foot-falls tinkled on the tufted floor.
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Scenes from a Courtesan's Life by Honore de Balzac: she was resting, on the plea of the danger in which Lucien stood.
"Who are you?" asked the Duchess, without any pretence at politeness,
as she looked at Asie from head to foot; for Asie, though she might be
taken for a Baroness by Maitre Massol in the Salle des Pas-Perdus,
when she stood on the carpet in the boudoir of the Hotel de Cadignan,
looked like a splash of mud on a white satin gown.
"I am a dealer in cast-off clothes, Madame la Duchesse; for in such
matters every lady applies to women whose business rests on a basis of
perfect secrecy. I have never betrayed anybody, though God knows how
many great ladies have intrusted their diamonds to me by the month
while wearing false jewels made to imitate them exactly."
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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 Paz by Honore de Balzac: dreaded by the social world of the liveliest and most stirring capital
in Europe. Why is there nothing of an inner life? nothing which leads
to revery, nothing reposeful? Why indeed? Because no one in our day is
sure of the future; we are living our lives like prodigal annuitants.
One morning Clementine appeared to be thinking of something. She was
lying at full length on one of those marvellous couches from which it
is almost impossible to rise, the upholsterer having invented them for
lovers of the "far niente" and its attendant joys of laziness to sink
into. The doors of the greenhouse were open, letting the odors of
vegetation and the perfume of the tropics pervade the room. The young
wife was looking at her husband who was smoking a narghile, the only
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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 Pierre Grassou by Honore de Balzac: of me left. What a crew!"
"I'll write you a line for my notary."
"Have you got a notary?"
"Yes."
"That explains to me why you still make cheeks with pink tones like a
perfumer's sign."
Grassou could not help coloring, for Virginie was sitting.
"Take Nature as you find her," said the great painter, going on with
his lecture. "Mademoiselle is red-haired. Well, is that a sin? All
things are magnificent in painting. Put some vermillion on your
palette, and warm up those cheeks; touch in those little brown spots;
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