| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Hated Son by Honore de Balzac: his eyelids in a way to heighten the light of his eye, which glittered
with the luminous ferocity of a wolf skulking on the watch in a
forest. Under his lion nose, with its flaring nostrils, a large and
ill-kept moustache (for he despised all toilet niceties) completely
concealed the upper lip. Happily for the countess, her husband's wide
mouth was silent at this moment, for the softest sounds of that harsh
voice made her tremble. Though the Comte d'Herouville was barely fifty
years of age, he appeared at first sight to be sixty, so much had the
toils of war, without injuring his robust constitution, dilapidated
him physically.
The countess, who was now in her nineteenth year, made a painful
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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 Hidden Masterpiece by Honore de Balzac: guarded so secretly,--a work of patient toil, a work no doubt of
genius, judging by the head of the Virgin which Poussin had so naively
admired, and which, beautiful beside even the Adam of Mabuse, betrayed
the imperial touch of a great artist,--in short, everything about the
strange old man seemed beyond the limits of human nature. The rich
imagination of the youth fastened upon the one perceptible and clear
clew to the mystery of this supernatural being,--the presence of the
artistic nature, that wild impassioned nature to which such mighty
powers have been confided, which too often abuses those powers, and
drags cold reason and common souls, and even lovers of art, over stony
and arid places, where for such there is neither pleasure nor
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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 Breaking Point by Mary Roberts Rinehart: governed them both; she held him off and looked at him, and then
strained herself to him again, as though the sense of unreality
were too strong, and only the contact of his rough clothing made
him real to her.
It was not until they were in her sitting-room with the door closed
that either of them dared to speak. Or perhaps, could speak. Even
then she kept hold of him.
"Dick!" she said. "Dick!"
And that, over and over.
"How is he?" he was able to ask finally.
"He has been very ill. I began to think - Dick, I'm afraid to tell
The Breaking Point |
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 Whirligigs by O. Henry: course, he would trot out a survey by counting the beat
of his pony's hoofs, mark his corners, and write out his
field notes with the complacency produced by an act of
duty well performed. Sometimes -- and who could
blame the surveyor? -- when the pony was "feeling his
oats," he might step a little higher and farther, and in
that case the beneficiary of the scrip might get a thousand
or two more acres in his survey than the scrip called for.
But look at the boundless leagues the state had to spare!
However, no one ever had to complain of the pony under-
stepping. Nearly every old survey in the state con-
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