| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Love and Friendship by Jane Austen: EDWARD the 4th
This Monarch was famous only for his Beauty and his Courage, of
which the Picture we have here given of him, and his undaunted
Behaviour in marrying one Woman while he was engaged to another,
are sufficient proofs. His Wife was Elizabeth Woodville, a Widow
who, poor Woman! was afterwards confined in a Convent by that
Monster of Iniquity and Avarice Henry the 7th. One of Edward's
Mistresses was Jane Shore, who has had a play written about her,
but it is a tragedy and therefore not worth reading. Having
performed all these noble actions, his Majesty died, and was
succeeded by his son.
Love and Friendship |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from When a Man Marries by Mary Roberts Rinehart: dinner was again announced.
He was to take me out, and he came across the room to where I sat
collapsed in a chair, and bent over me.
"Do you know," he said, looking down at me with his clear,
disconcerting gaze, "do you know that I have just grasped the
situation? There was such a noise that I did not hear your name,
and I am only realizing now that you are my hostess! I don't know
why I got the impression that this was a bachelor establishment,
but I did. Odd, wasn't it?"
I positively couldn't look away from him. My features seemed
frozen, and my eyes were glued to his. As for telling him the
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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 Sons of the Soil by Honore de Balzac: place. As Laroche truly said, they could not guillotine or even
convict a whole community.
The general invited the mayor of Conches, the lieutenant, and the
sergeant to breakfast. The conspirators of the Grand-I-Vert adjourned
to the tavern of Conches, where the delinquents spent in drink the
money their relations had given them to take to prison, sharing it
with the Blangy people, who were naturally part of the wedding,--the
word "wedding" being applied indiscriminately in Burgundy to all such
rejoicings. To drink, quarrel, fight, eat and go home drunk and sick,
--that is a wedding to these peasants.
The general, who had come by the park, took his guests back through
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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 Princess of Parms by Edgar Rice Burroughs: the moss-like vegetation within our court yard.
"By kindness," I replied. "You see, Tars Tarkas, the softer
sentiments have their value, even to a warrior. In the height
of battle as well as upon the march I know that my thoats
will obey my every command, and therefore my fighting
efficiency is enhanced, and I am a better warrior for the
reason that I am a kind master. Your other warriors would find
it to the advantage of themselves as well as of the community
to adopt my methods in this respect. Only a few days since you,
yourself, told me that these great brutes, by the uncertainty
of their tempers, often were the means of turning victory
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