| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Sons of the Soil by Honore de Balzac: Mariotte prefer losses to profits, in spite of my advice?"
Courtecuisse, filled with admiration for these words of wisdom,
returned home burning with the desire to be a land-owner and a
bourgeois like the rest.
When the general reached Les Aigues he related his expedition to
Sibilet.
"Monsieur le comte did very right," said the steward, rubbing his
hands; "but he must not stop short half-way. The field-keeper of the
district who allows the country-people to prey upon the meadows and
rob the harvests ought to be changed. Monsieur le comte should have
himself chosen mayor, and appoint one of his old soldiers, who would
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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 Ebb-Tide by Stevenson & Osbourne: 'Well, you see, it was just as the old boy said--like the cut of
a whip,' said Herrick. 'The one minute I was here on the beach
at three in the morning, the next I was in front of the Golden
Cross at midday. At first I was dazzled, and covered my eyes,
and there didn't seem the smallest change; the roar of the Strand
and the roar of the reef were like the same: hark to it now, and
you can hear the cabs and buses rolling and the streets resound!
And then at last I could look about, and there was the old place,
and no mistake! With the statues in the square, and St Martin's-
in-the-Fields, and the bobbies, and the sparrows, and the hacks;
and I can't tell you what I felt like. I felt like crying, I
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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 Essays & Lectures by Oscar Wilde: century a selection of facts should be made and the rest burned (if
it was really intended seriously) could not, of course, be
entertained for a moment. A problem loses all its value when it
becomes simplified, and the world would be all the poorer if the
Sibyl of History burned her volumes. Besides, as Gibbon pointed
out, 'a Montesquieu will detect in the most insignificant fact
relations which the vulgar overlook.'
Nor can the scientific investigator of history isolate the
particular elements, which he desires to examine, from disturbing
and extraneous causes, as the experimental chemist can do (though
sometimes, as in the case of lunatic asylums and prisons, he is
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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 Flame and Shadow by Sara Teasdale: Leave me the darkness and the stillness,
I shall be tired and glad to go.
August Moonrise
The sun was gone, and the moon was coming
Over the blue Connecticut hills;
The west was rosy, the east was flushed,
And over my head the swallows rushed
This way and that, with changeful wills.
I heard them twitter and watched them dart
Now together and now apart
Like dark petals blown from a tree;
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