| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Two Poets by Honore de Balzac: jaded Sultan airs were like a challenge.
Amelie de Chandour, short, plump, fair-complexioned, and dark-haired,
was a poor actress; her voice was loud, like everything else about
her; her head, with its load of feathers in winter and flowers in
summer, was never still for a moment. She had a fine flow of
conversation, though she could never bring a sentence to an end
without a wheezing accompaniment from an asthma, to which she would
not confess.
M. de Saintot, otherwise Astolphe, President of the Agricultural
Society, a tall, stout, high-colored personage, usually appeared in
the wake of his wife, Elisa, a lady with a countenance like a withered
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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 Soul of Man by Oscar Wilde: as when he talks about the rich he simply means people who have not
developed their personalities. Jesus moved in a community that
allowed the accumulation of private property just as ours does, and
the gospel that he preached was not that in such a community it is
an advantage for a man to live on scanty, unwholesome food, to wear
ragged, unwholesome clothes, to sleep in horrid, unwholesome
dwellings, and a disadvantage for a man to live under healthy,
pleasant, and decent conditions. Such a view would have been wrong
there and then, and would, of course, be still more wrong now and
in England; for as man moves northward the material necessities of
life become of more vital importance, and our society is infinitely
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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 Little Women by Louisa May Alcott: pleasing reminiscences, and curiosity about `the charming young ladies'
diverted his mind from the comical mishap.
"I suppose he'll laugh and joke over it with Laurie, but I shan't
see them, that's a comfort," thought Amy, as Tudor bowed and departed.
She did not mention this meeting at home (though she discovered
that, thanks to the upset, her new dress was much damaged by the
rivulets of dressing that meandered down the skirt), but went through
with the preparations which now seemed more irksome than before, and
at twelve o'clock all was ready again. feeling that the neighbors
were interested in her movements, she wished to efface the memory of
yesterday's failure by a grand success today, so she ordered the
Little Women |
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 Secrets of the Princesse de Cadignan by Honore de Balzac: One evening Daniel found the princess thoughtful, one elbow resting on
a little table, her beautiful blond head bathed in light from the
lamp. She was toying with a letter which lay on the table-cloth. When
d'Arthez had seen the paper distinctly, she folded it up, and stuck it
in her belt.
"What is the matter?" asked d'Arthez; "you seem distressed."
"I have received a letter from Monsieur de Cadignan," she replied.
"However great the wrongs he has done me, I cannot help thinking of
his exile--without family, without son--from his native land."
These words, said in a soulful voice, betrayed angelic sensibility.
D'Arthez was deeply moved. The curiosity of the lover became, so to
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