| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Altar of the Dead by Henry James: her very embarrassment. She declared to him that his own was the
larger, the dearer possession - the portion one would have chosen
if one had been able to choose; she assured him she could perfectly
imagine some of the echoes with which his silences were peopled.
He knew she couldn't: one's relation to what one had loved and
hated had been a relation too distinct from the relations of
others. But this didn't affect the fact that they were growing old
together in their piety. She was a feature of that piety, but even
at the ripe stage of acquaintance in which they occasionally
arranged to meet at a concert or to go together to an exhibition
she was not a feature of anything else. The most that happened was
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Lady Baltimore by Owen Wister: and not as any man dictated, that those French colonists sought the New
World. No Puritan splendor of independence and indomitable courage
outshines theirs. They preached a word as burning as any that Plymouth or
Salem ever heard. They were but a handful, yet so fecund was their
marvelous zeal that they became the spiritual leaven of their whole
community. They are less known than Plymouth and Salem, because men of
action, rather than men of letters, have sprung from the loins of the
South; but there they stand, a beautiful beacon, shining upon the coasts
of our early history. Into their church, then, into the shrine where
their small lamp still burns, their devout descendant, Mrs. Weguelin St.
Michael led our party, because in her eyes Kings Port could show nothing
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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 Finished by H. Rider Haggard: cut very nicely on the previous day, was watching us from his
long chair. They looked at each other, and I saw both of them
colour a little, out of mere foolishness, I suppose.
"Anscombe," I said, "this is--" and I paused, not being quite
certain whether she also was called Marnham. "Heda Marnham," she
interrupted.
"Yes--Miss Heda Marnham, and this is the Honourable Maurice
Anscombe."
"Forgive me for not rising, Miss Marnham," said Anscombe in his
pleasant voice (by the way hers was pleasant too, full and rather
low, with just a suggestion of something foreign about it). "A
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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 Madame Firmiani by Honore de Balzac: as that of the felis domestica. But how explain the perennial vigor of
envy?--a vice that brings nothing in!
Persons in society, literary men, honest folk,--in short, individuals
of all species,--were promulgating in the month of January, 1824, so
many different opinions about Madame Firmiani that it would be tedious
to write them down. We have merely sought to show that a man seeking
to understand her, yet unwilling or unable to go to her house, would
(from the answers to his inquiries) have had equal reason to suppose
her a widow or wife, silly or wise, virtuous or the reverse, rich or
pour, soulless or full of feeling, handsome or plain,--in short, there
were as many Madame Firmianis as there are species in society, or
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