| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from A Drama on the Seashore by Honore de Balzac: 'Your son has nearly killed little such a one,' he would laugh and
say: 'Bah! he'll be a bold sailor; he'll command the king's fleets.'--
Another time, 'Pierre Cambremer, did you know your lad very nearly put
out the eye of the little Pougard girl?'--'Ha! he'll like the girls,'
said Pierre. Nothing troubled him. At ten years old the little cur
fought everybody, and amused himself with cutting the hens' necks off
and ripping up the pigs; in fact, you might say he wallowed in blood.
'He'll be a famous soldier,' said Cambremer, 'he's got the taste of
blood.' Now, you see," said the fisherman, "I can look back and
remember all that--and Cambremer, too," he added, after a pause. "By
the time Jacques Cambremer was fifteen or sixteen years of age he had
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Astoria by Washington Irving: trade, commencing at California and proceeding north: and, having
in the course of the two seasons collected a sufficient cargo of
peltries, would make the best of their way to China. Here they
would sell their furs, take in teas, nankeens, and other
merchandise, and return to Boston, after an absence of two or
three years.
The people, however, who entered most extensively and effectively
in the fur trade of the Pacific, were the Russians. Instead of
making casual voyages, in transient ships, they established
regular trading houses in the high latitudes, along the northwest
coast of America, and upon the chain of the Aleutian Islands
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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 The Two Brothers by Honore de Balzac: then treated him harshly, trying to break him into a routine that
might serve in place of intelligence. He thus, though unconsciously,
prepared him to submit to the yoke of the first tyranny that threw its
halter over his head.
Coming home one day from his professional round, the malignant and
vicious old man came across a bewitching little girl at the edge of
some fields that lay along the avenue de Tivoli. Hearing the horse,
the child sprang up from the bottom of one of the many brooks which
are to be seen from the heights of Issoudun, threading the meadows
like ribbons of silver on a green robe. Naiad-like, she rose suddenly
on the doctor's vision, showing the loveliest virgin head 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 The Riverman by Stewart Edward White: "Do you want me to?" persisted Orde.
She began gently to laugh, quite to herself, as though enjoying a
joke entirely within her own personal privilege.
"You are so direct and persistent and boy-like," said she presently.
"Now if you'll be very good, and not whisper to the other little
pupils, I'll tell you how they do such things usually." She sat up
straight from the depths of her chair, her white, delicately
tapering forearms resting lightly on her knees. "Young men desiring
to communicate with young ladies do not ask them bluntly. They make
some excuse, like sending a book, a magazine, a marked newspaper, or
even a bit of desired information. At the same time, they send
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