| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Black Tulip by Alexandre Dumas: believing himself to be on his way to the scaffold.
William, looking with his cold glance on Cornelius, listened
to his anxious and urgent request.
Then addressing himself to the officer, he said, --
"Is this person the mutinous prisoner who has attempted to
kill his jailer at Loewestein?"
Cornelius heaved a sigh and hung his head. His good-tempered
honest face turned pale and red at the same instant. These
words of the all-powerful Prince, who by some secret
messenger unavailable to other mortals had already been
apprised of his crime, seemed to him to forebode not only
The Black Tulip |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Edition of The Ambassadors by Henry James: "In the box? Yes," he rather blankly urged.
"Well--to feel sure."
"Sure of what?"
She got up from her chair, at this, with a nearer approach than
she had ever yet shown to dismay at his dimness. She even, fairly
pausing for it, spoke with a shade of pity. "Guess!"
It was a shade, fairly, that brought a flush into his face; so
that for a moment, as they waited together, their difference was
between them. "You mean that just your hour with him told you so
much of his story? Very good; I'm not such a fool, on my side, as
that I don't understand you, or as that I didn't in some degree
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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 Where There's A Will by Mary Roberts Rinehart: don't want the place until May. I'll get it when I'm ready for
it. I had a good look at young Carter, and he's got too square a
jaw to run a successful neurasthenics' home."
I went to the pantry myself at ten o'clock and fixed a tray of
supper for Mr. Pierce. He would need all his strength the next
day, and a man can't travel far on buttered pop-corn. I found
some chicken and got a bottle of the old doctor's wine--I had
kept the key of his wine-cellar since he died --and carried
the tray up to Mr. Pierce's sitting-room. He had the old
doctor's suite.
The door was open an inch or so, and as I was about to knock I
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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 The Altar of the Dead by Henry James: She dropped his hand at this, got up and, moving across the room,
made straight a small picture to which, on examining it, he had
given a slight push. Then turning round on him with her pale
gaiety recovered, "I've forgiven him!" she declared.
"I know what you've done," said Stransom "I know what you've done
for years." For a moment they looked at each other through it all
with their long community of service in their eyes. This short
passage made, to his sense, for the woman before him, an immense,
an absolutely naked confession; which was presently, suddenly
blushing red and changing her place again, what she appeared to
learn he perceived in it. He got up and "How you must have loved
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