| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Cavalry General by Xenophon: Beginning with the simple art of mounting on horseback, let him so
train himself in all particulars of horsemanship that, to look at him,
the men must see their leader is a horseman who can leap a trench
unscathed or scale a parapet,[3] or gallop down a bank, and hurl a
javelin with the best. These are accomplishments which one and all
will pave the way to make contempt impossible. If, further, the men
shall see in their commander one who, with the knowledge how to act,
has force of will and cunning to make them get the better of the
enemy; and if, further, they have got the notion well into their heads
that this same leader may be trusted not to lead them recklesssly
against the foe, without the help of Heaven, or despite the auspices--
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Nana, Miller's Daughter, Captain Burle, Death of Olivier Becaille by Emile Zola: "Then give 'em to me, booby!"
But as she took the bouquet from him he sprang upon her hands and
kissed them with all the gluttonous eagerness peculiar to his
charming time of life. She had to beat him to make him let go.
There was a dreadful little dribbling customer for you! But as she
scolded him she flushed rosy-red and began smiling. And with that
she sent him about his business, telling him that he might call
again. He staggered away; he could not find the doors.
Nana went back into her dressing room, where Francis made his
appearance almost simultaneously in order to dress her hair for the
evening. Seated in front of her mirror and bending her head beneath
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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 American Notes by Rudyard Kipling: She drove one man nearly wild with the pretty little treachery,
and the other man abandoned her and came West to forget the
trickery.
Moon-face was that man.
We rounded and limped over a low spur of hill, and came out upon
a field of aching, snowy lime rolled in sheets, twisted into
knots, riven with rents, and diamonds, and stars, stretching for
more than half a mile in every direction.
On this place of despair lay most of the big, bad geysers who
know when there is trouble in Krakatoa, who tell the pines when
there is a cyclone on the Atlantic seaboard, and who are
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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 Firm of Nucingen by Honore de Balzac: in the Archipelago, where he built a magnificent cathedral."
"Oh! you are giving us an historical lecture, we are wandering away
from the present, the crown has no right of conferring nobility, and
barons and counts are made with closed doors; more is the pity!" said
Finot.
"You regret the times of the savonnette a vilain, when you could buy
an office that ennobled?" asked Bixiou. "You are right. Je reviens a
nos moutons.--Do you know Beaudenord? No? no? no? Ah, well! See how
all things pass away! Poor fellow, ten years ago he was the flower of
dandyism; and now, so thoroughly absorbed that you no more know him
than Finot just now knew the origin of the expression 'coup de
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