| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Alkahest by Honore de Balzac: two years--one following the other with cumulative suffering--was now
added a dreadful and ceaseless fear which made the future terrifying.
Women have presentiments whose accuracy is often marvellous. Why do
they fear so much more than they hope in matters that concern the
interests of this life? Why is their faith given only to religious
ideas of a future existence? Why do they so ably foresee the
catastrophes of fortune and the crises of fate? Perhaps the sentiment
which unites them to the men they love gives them a sense by which
they weigh force, measure faculties, understand tastes, passions,
vices, virtues. The perpetual study of these causes in the midst of
which they live gives them, no doubt, the fatal power of foreseeing
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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 Chessmen of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs: The opening was but barely large enough to admit her. Upon the
opposite side she found herself in a small chamber. Before her
squatted Luud. Against the opposite wall lay a large and
beautiful male rykor. He was without harness or other trappings.
"You see now," said Luud, "the futility of revolt."
The words seemed to release her momentarily from the spell.
Quickly she turned away her eyes.
"Look at me!" commanded Luud.
Tara of Helium kept her eyes averted. She felt a new strength, or
at least a diminution of the creature's power over her. Had she
stumbled upon the secret of its uncanny domination over her will?
The Chessmen of Mars |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from From London to Land's End by Daniel Defoe: has a claim to antiquity, and is an appendix to the Duchy of
Cornwall, of which it holds at a fee farm rent and pays to the
Prince of Wales as duke 10 pounds 11s. 1d. per annum. It has no
parish church, but only a chapel-of-ease to an adjacent parish.
Penryn is up the same branch of the Avon as Falmouth, but stands
four miles higher towards the west; yet ships come to it of as
great a size as can come to Truro itself. It is a very pleasant,
agreeable town, and for that reason has many merchants in it, who
would perhaps otherwise live at Falmouth. The chief commerce of
these towns, as to their sea-affairs, is the pilchards and
Newfoundland fishing, which is very profitable to them all. It had
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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 Letters of Two Brides by Honore de Balzac: an admiration such as could only make a woman proud. We shall take a
great deal of interest in the silkworms for whose benefit our
mulberry-leaves will be sold! We shall know the strange vicissitudes
of life in Provence, and the storms that may attack even a peaceful
household. Quarrels will be impossible, for M. de l'Estorade has
formally announced that he will leave the reins in his wife's hands;
and as I shall do nothing to remind him of this wise resolve, it is
likely he may persevere in it.
You, my dear Louise, will supply the romance of my life. So you must
narrate to me in full all your adventures, describe your balls and
parties, tell me what you wear, what flowers crown your lovely golden
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