| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Charmides and Other Poems by Oscar Wilde: Like a red rod of flame, stony and steeled
The Gorgon's head its leaden eyeballs rolled,
And writhed its snaky horrors through the shield,
And gaped aghast with bloodless lips and cold
In passion impotent, while with blind gaze
The blinking owl between the feet hooted in shrill amaze.
The lonely fisher as he trimmed his lamp
Far out at sea off Sunium, or cast
The net for tunnies, heard a brazen tramp
Of horses smite the waves, and a wild blast
Divide the folded curtains of the night,
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Michael Strogoff by Jules Verne: would soon find itself engaged with the main body of Feo-
far-Khan's army, would be inevitably overwhelmed, and the
Irkutsk road would be in the entire possession of the in-
vaders.
As to himself, Michael learnt, by some words from the
pendja-baschi, that a price was set on his head, and that
orders had been given to take him, dead or alive.
It was necessary, therefore, to get the start of the Usbeck
horsemen on the Irkutsk road, and put the Obi between
himself and them. But to do that, he must escape before
the camp was broken up.
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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 Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton: He gave a reckless shrug. "It's too late to do
anything else."
"You say that because it's the easiest thing to say at
this moment--not because it's true. In reality it's too
late to do anything but what we'd both decided on."
"Ah, I don't understand you!"
She forced a pitiful smile that pinched her face
instead of smoothing it. "You don't understand because
you haven't yet guessed how you've changed things for
me: oh, from the first--long before I knew all you'd
done."
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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 Paz by Honore de Balzac: is almost impossible to rise, the upholsterer having invented them for
lovers of the "far niente" and its attendant joys of laziness to sink
into. The doors of the greenhouse were open, letting the odors of
vegetation and the perfume of the tropics pervade the room. The young
wife was looking at her husband who was smoking a narghile, the only
form of pipe she would have suffered in that room. The portieres, held
back by cords, gave a vista through two elegant salons, one white and
gold, comparable only to that of the hotel Forbin-Janson, the other in
the style of the Renaissance. The dining-room, which had no rival in
Paris except that of the Baron de Nucingen, was at the end of a short
gallery decorated in the manner of the middle-ages. This gallery
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