| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Collection of Antiquities by Honore de Balzac: nothing during nine hundred years has changed their scutcheon; as it
was at first, so it is to-day. Hence our device, Cil est nostre, taken
at a tournament in the reign of Philip Augustus, with the supporters,
a knight in armor or on the right, and a lion gules on the left."
"I do not remember that any woman I have ever met has struck my
imagination as Mlle. d'Esgrignon did," said Emile Blondet, to whom
contemporary literature is indebted for this history among other
things. "Truth to tell, I was a boy, a mere child at the time, and
perhaps my memory-pictures of her owe something of their vivid color
to a boy's natural turn for the marvelous.
"If I was playing with other children on the Parade, and she came to
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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 Octopus by Frank Norris: not hope for it.
As Annixter's team trotted through the central portion of the
town, young Vacca pointed to a denser and larger crowd around the
rear entrance of the City Hall. Fully twenty saddle horses were
tied to the iron rail underneath the scant, half-grown trees near
by, and as Annixter and Hilma drove by, the crowd parted and a
dozen men with revolvers on their hips pushed their way to the
curbstone, and, mounting their horses, rode away at a gallop.
"It's the posse," said young Vacca.
Outside the town limits the ground was level. There was nothing
to obstruct the view, and to the north, in the direction 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 Summer by Edith Wharton: Now she knew the meaning of her disdains and
reluctances. She had learned what she was worth when
Lucius Harney, looking at her for the first time, had
lost the thread of his speech, and leaned reddening on
the edge of her desk. But another kind of shyness had
been born in her: a terror of exposing to vulgar perils
the sacred treasure of her happiness. She was not
sorry to have the neighbors suspect her of "going with"
a young man from the city; but she did not want it
known to all the countryside how many hours of the long
June days she spent with him. What she most feared was
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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 The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson by Robert Louis Stevenson: I was well away somewhere else. I feel like flight some days;
honour bright.
Pirbright Smith is well. Old Mr. Pegfurth Bannatyne is here
staying at a country inn. His whole baggage is a pair of socks and
a book in a fishing-basket; and he borrows even a rod from the
landlord. He walked here over the hills from Sanquhar, 'singin',
he says, 'like a mavis.' I naturally asked him about Hazlitt. 'He
wouldnae take his drink,' he said, 'a queer, queer fellow.' But
did not seem further communicative. He says he has become
'releegious,' but still swears like a trooper. I asked him if he
had no headquarters. 'No likely,' said he. He says he is writing
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