| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from A Start in Life by Honore de Balzac: "But I brought you here to learn them."
"Mamma told me only to stay two weeks because of Madame Moreau."
"Oh! we'll see about that," replied Moreau, rather wounded that his
conjugal authority was doubted.
Moreau's youngest son, an active, strapping lad of twelve, here ran
up.
"Come," said his father, "take Oscar to your mother."
He himself went rapidly along the shortest path to the gamekeeper's
house, which was situated between the park and the forest.
The pavilion, or lodge, in which the count had established his
steward, was built a few years before the Revolution. It stood in the
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Selected Writings of Guy De Maupassant by Guy De Maupassant: house standing as long as they were able; a family of brave, or
of poor, people. The rain began to fall, a fine, icy-cold rain,
which froze us before it wetted us through, by merely touching
our cloaks. The horses stumbled against stones, against beams,
against furniture. Marchas guided us, going before us on foot,
and leading his horse by the bridle.
" 'Where are you taking us to?' I asked him. And he replied: 'I
have a place for us to lodge in, and a rare good one.' And soon
we stopped before a small house, evidently belonging to some
person of the middle class, completely shut up, built on to the
street with a garden in the rear.
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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 Shakespeare's Sonnets by William Shakespeare: That better is, by evil still made better;
And ruin'd love, when it is built anew,
Grows fairer than at first, more strong, far greater.
So I return rebuk'd to my content,
And gain by ill thrice more than I have spent.
CXX
That you were once unkind befriends me now,
And for that sorrow, which I then did feel,
Needs must I under my transgression bow,
Unless my nerves were brass or hammer'd steel.
For if you were by my unkindness shaken,
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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 Records of a Family of Engineers by Robert Louis Stevenson: fresh breeze. At nine a.m. the bell rung, and the boats were
hoisted out, and though the artificers were now pretty well
accustomed to tripping up and down the sides of the floating
light, yet it required more seamanship this morning than
usual. It therefore afforded some merriment to those who had
got fairly seated in their respective boats to see the
difficulties which attended their companions, and the
hesitating manner in which they quitted hold of the man-ropes
in leaving the ship. The passage to the rock was tedious, and
the boats did not reach it till half-past ten.
It being now the period of neap-tides, the water only
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