| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Riverman by Stewart Edward White: fifteen miles away, as was attested by a large pile of heavy planks.
When the sawhorses were completed, Orde directed the picks and
shovels to be brought up.
At this point the river, as has been hinted, widened over shoals.
The banks at either hand, too, were flat and comparatively low. As
is often the case in bends of rivers subject to annual floods, the
banks sloped back for some distance into a lower black-ash swamp
territory.
Orde set his men to digging a channel through this bank. It was no
slight job, from one point of view, as the slope down into the swamp
began only at a point forty or fifty feet inland; but on the other
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Madame Firmiani by Honore de Balzac: receive you,--she only does that for women, ambassadors, dukes, and
persons of great distinction. She is very gracious, she possesses
charm; she converses well, and likes to talk on many topics. There are
many indications of a passionate nature about her; but she has,
evidently, so many adorers that she cannot have a favorite. If
suspicion rested on two or three of her intimates, we might say that
one or other of them was the "cavaliere servente"; but it does not.
The lady is a mystery. She is married, though none of us have seen her
husband. Monsieur Firmiani is altogether mythical; he is like that
third post-horse for which we pay though we never behold it. Madame
has the finest contralto voice in Europe, so say judges; but she has
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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 Tristram Shandy by Laurence Sterne: every thing was right at his fortifications--in the lane separated from the
bowling-green with flowering shrubs and holly--he espied his Bridget.
As the corporal thought there was nothing in the world so well worth
shewing as the glorious works which he and my uncle Toby had made, Trim
courteously and gallantly took her by the hand, and led her in: this was
not done so privately, but that the foul-mouth'd trumpet of Fame carried it
from ear to ear, till at length it reach'd my father's, with this untoward
circumstance along with it, that my uncle Toby's curious draw-bridge,
constructed and painted after the Dutch fashion, and which went quite
across the ditch--was broke down, and somehow or other crushed all to
pieces that very night.
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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 Ursula by Honore de Balzac: one before that of Saint Denis? Come, tell me everything about your
little love-affair."
Ursula blushed, swallowed a few tears, and for a moment there was
silence between them.
"Surely you are not afraid of your father, your friend, mother,
doctor, and godfather, whose heart is now more tender than it ever has
been."
"No, no, dear godfather," she said. "I will open my heart to you. Last
May, Monsieur Savinien came to see his mother. Until then I had never
taken notice of him. When he left home to live in Paris I was a child,
and I did not see any difference between him and--all of you--except
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