| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Man against the Sky by Edwin Arlington Robinson: And all we have of them is now a legend and a name.
All I have to say is what an old man said to me,
And that would seem to be as much as there will ever be.
"Fifty years ago it was we found it where it sat." --
And forty years ago it was old Archibald said that.
"An apple tree that's yet alive saw something, I suppose,
Of what it was that happened there, and what no mortal knows.
Some one on the mountain heard far off a master shriek,
And then there was a light that showed the way for men to seek.
"We found it in the morning with an iron bar behind,
And there were chains around it; but no search could ever find,
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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 Deserted Woman by Honore de Balzac: days that brought no mental exertion and no responsibilities. The
constant stirring of the sap of life, the fertilizing influences of
mind on mind, after which he had sought so eagerly in Paris, were
beginning to fade from his memory, and he was in a fair way of
becoming a fossil with these fossils, and ending his days among them,
content, like the companions of Ulysses, in his gross envelope.
One evening Gaston de Nueil was seated between a dowager and one of
the vicars-general of the diocese, in a gray-paneled drawing-room,
floored with large white tiles. The family portraits which adorned the
walls looked down upon four card-tables, and some sixteen persons
gathered about them, chattering over their whist. Gaston, thinking of
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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 Charmides and Other Poems by Oscar Wilde: Of his gold city, and eternal day' -
Nay peace: behind my prison's blinded bars
I do possess what none can take away,
My love and all the glory of the stars.
ON THE SALE BY AUCTION OF KEATS' LOVE LETTERS
These are the letters which Endymion wrote
To one he loved in secret, and apart.
And now the brawlers of the auction mart
Bargain and bid for each poor blotted note,
Ay! for each separate pulse of passion quote
The merchant's price. I think they love not art
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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 An Historical Mystery by Honore de Balzac: getting home in time for dinner, and finishing the day with a game of
boston. All the inhabitants of the chateau had their stated
occupations; life was as closely regulated there as in a convent.
Laurence alone disturbed its even tenor by her sudden journeys, her
uncertain returns, and by what Madame d'Hauteserre called her pranks.
But with all this peacefulness there existed at Cinq-Cygne conflicting
interests and certain causes of dissension. In the first place Durieu
and his wife were jealous of Catherine and Gothard, who lived in
greater intimacy with their young mistress, the idol of the household,
than they did. Then the two d'Hauteserres, encouraged by Mademoiselle
Goujet and the abbe, wanted their sons as well as the Simeuse brothers
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