| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from A Start in Life by Honore de Balzac: villages like Pierrefitte, Groslay, Ecouen, Poncelles, Moisselles,
Monsoult, Maffliers, Franconville, Presles, Nointel, Nerville, etc.
The Touchard coaches finally extended their route to Chambly; but
competition followed. To-day the Toulouse, a rival enterprise, goes as
far as Beauvais.
Along this route, which is that toward England, there lies a road
which turns off at a place well-named, in view of its topography, The
Cave, and leads through a most delightful valley in the basin of the
Oise to the little town of Isle-Adam, doubly celebrated as the cradle
of the family, now extinct, of Isle-Adam, and also as the former
residence of the Bourbon-Contis. Isle-Adam is a little town flanked by
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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 Case of the Registered Letter by Grace Isabel Colbron and Augusta Groner: sleeps when the chase is on, he does not seem to know human
weakness nor fatigue, in spite of his frail body. Once put on
a case his mind delves and delves until it finds a clue, then
something awakes within him, a spirit akin to that which holds
the bloodhound nose to trail, and he will accomplish the apparently
impossible, he will track down his victim when the entire machinery
of a great police department seems helpless to discover anything.
The high chiefs and commissioners grant a condescending permission
when Muller asks, "May I do this? ... or may I handle this case
this way?" both parties knowing all the while that it is a farce,
and that the department waits helpless until this humble little
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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 The Copy-Cat & Other Stories by Mary E. Wilkins Freeman: not use that expression. Daniel said to his friends
and his niece Dora that he had "quit work." But
he told himself, without the least bitterness, that
work had quit him.
After Daniel had retired, his one physiological
peculiarity assumed enormous proportions. It had
always been with him, but steady work had held it,
to a great extent, at bay. Daniel was a moral
coward before physical conditions. He was as one
who suffers, not so much from agony of the flesh as
from agony of the mind induced thereby. Daniel
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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 A Second Home by Honore de Balzac: and standing on the steps so as to meet him like an embodiment of
remorse. The petty aggressiveness which lies at the root of the
monastic temper was the foundation of Madame de Granville's; she was
now five-and-thirty, and looked forty. When the count was compelled by
decency to speak to his wife or to dine at home, she was only too well
pleased to inflict her company upon him, with her acid-sweet remarks
and the intolerable dulness of her narrow-minded circle, and she tried
to put him in the wrong before the servants and her charitable
friends.
When, at this time, the post of President in a provincial court was
offered to the Comte de Granville, who was in high favor, he begged to
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