| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Somebody's Little Girl by Martha Young: wise, and that she understood all the things that little girls
wonder about.
But though there was a difference, a very great difference, between
Mamas and Ladies it was very hard to tell--unless you asked.
One day a large fat lady took Bessie Bell on her lap. That was very
strange to Bessie Bell--to sit on top of anybody.
And the lady made a rabbit, and a pony, and a preacher, all out of a
handkerchief and her nice fat fingers. And then she made with the
same handkerchief and fingers a Mama holding a Baby.
Then Bessie Bell looked up at her with her wondering eyes and asked:
``Are you a Lady--''
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Tono Bungay by H. G. Wells: Westminster's outlines ahead, had an effect of grey largeness
that reduced him to the proportions of a busy black beetle in a
crack in the floor.
And then my eye caught the advertisements on the south side of
"Sorber's Food," of "Cracknell's Ferric Wine," very bright and
prosperous signs, illuminated at night, and I realised how
astonishingly they looked at home there, how evidently part they
were in the whole thing.
I saw a man come charging out of Palace Yard--the policeman
touched his helmet to him--with a hat and a bearing astonishingly
like my uncle's. After all,--didn't Cracknell himself sit in 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 Daisy Miller by Henry James: and, with Mr. Giovanelli, who made a triumphantly obsequious salute,
she turned away.
Mrs. Walker sat looking after her, and there were tears in
Mrs. Walker's eyes. "Get in here, sir," she said to Winterbourne,
indicating the place beside her. The young man answered that he felt
bound to accompany Miss Miller, whereupon Mrs. Walker declared that
if he refused her this favor she would never speak to him again.
She was evidently in earnest. Winterbourne overtook Daisy and
her companion, and, offering the young girl his hand, told her
that Mrs. Walker had made an imperious claim upon his society.
He expected that in answer she would say something rather free,
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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 Drama on the Seashore by Honore de Balzac: which Pierre struck him a blow which sent Jacques to his bed for six
weeks. The poor mother nearly died of grief. One night, as she was
fast asleep beside her husband, a noise awoke her; she rose up
quickly, and was stabbed in the arm with a knife. She cried out loud,
and when Pierre Cambremer struck a light and saw his wife wounded, he
thought it was the doing of robbers,--as if we ever had any in these
parts, where you might carry ten thousand francs in gold from Croisic
to Saint-Nazaire without ever being asked what you had in your arms.
Pierre looked for his son, but he could not find him. In the morning,
if that monster didn't have the face to come home, saying he had
stayed at Batz all night! I should tell you that the mother had not
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