| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from A Voyage to Abyssinia by Father Lobo: nations through which we were to pass. Our chief desire was to
discover some new road by which we might avoid having anything to do
with the Turks. Among great numbers whom we consulted on this
occasion, we were informed by some that we might go through Melinda.
These men painted that hideous wilderness in charming colours, told
us that we should find a country watered with navigable rivers, and
inhabited by a people that would either inform us of the way, or
accompany us in it. These reports charmed us, because they
flattered our desires; but our superiors finding nothing in all this
talk that could be depended on, were in suspense what directions to
give us, till my companion and I upon this reflection, that since
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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 Breaking Point by Mary Roberts Rinehart: It was when he was ready to go out that Lucy's fears were realized.
He came in, as always when anything unusual was afoot, to let her
look him over. He knew that she waited for him, to give his He a
final pat, to inspect the laundering of his shirt bosom, to pick
imaginary threads off his dinner coat.
"Well?" he said, standing before her, "how's this? Art can do no
more, Mrs. Crosby."
"I'll brush your back," she said, and brought the brush. He stooped
to her, according to the little ceremony she had established, and she
made little dabs at his speckless back. "There, that's better."
He straightened.
The Breaking Point |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Cousin Betty by Honore de Balzac: Guard in which he strutted at the Tuileries, believing himself quite
as much a soldier as the Emperor himself; but ambition, urged by
Madame Marneffe, had proved stronger than vanity. Then Monsieur le
Maire had considered his connection with Mademoiselle Heloise
Brisetout as quite incompatible with his political position.
Indeed, long before his accession to the civic chair of the Mayoralty,
his gallant intimacies had been wrapped in the deepest mystery. But,
as the reader may have guessed, Crevel had soon purchased the right of
taking his revenge, as often as circumstances allowed, for having been
bereft of Josepha, at the cost of a bond bearing six thousand francs
of interest in the name of Valerie Fortin, wife of Sieur Marneffe, for
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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 Cousin Pons by Honore de Balzac: way to the front. A German's naivete does not invariably last him
through his life; in some cases it fails after a certain age; and even
as a cultivator of the soil brings water from afar by means of
irrigation channels, so, from the springs of his youth, does the
Teuton draw the simplicity which disarms suspicion--the perennial
supplies with which he fertilizes his labors in every field of
science, art, or commerce. A crafty Frenchman here and there will turn
a Parisian tradesman's stupidity to good account in the same way. But
Schmucke had kept his child's simplicity much as Pons continued to
wear his relics of the Empire--all unsuspectingly. The true and noble-
hearted German was at once the theatre and the audience, making music
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