| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from King Henry VI by William Shakespeare: And no great friend, I fear me, to the king.
Consider, lords, he is the next of blood,
And heir apparent to the English crown.
Had Henry got an empire by his marriage,
And all the wealthy kingdoms of the west,
There's reason he should be displeas'd at it.
Look to it, lords.
Let not his smoothing words
Bewitch your hearts; be wise and circumspect.
What though the common people favour him,
Calling him 'Humphrey, the good Duke of Gloster,'
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from An Historical Mystery by Honore de Balzac: For the last six months the abbe had watched Laurence with the
intuition peculiar to priests, the most sagacious of men; and although
he did not know that this girl of twenty-three was thinking of
overturning Bonaparte as she lay there twisting with slender fingers
the frogged lacing of her riding-habit, he was well aware that she was
agitated by some great project.
Mademoiselle Goujet was one of those unmarried women whose portrait
can be drawn in one word which will enable the least imaginative mind
to picture her; she was ungainly. She knew her own ugliness and was
the first to laugh at it, showing her long teeth, yellow as her
complexion and her bony hands. She was gay and hearty. She wore 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 Bureaucracy by Honore de Balzac: staircases. The wag of the ministry, Bixiou, sent round a paper,
headed by a caricature of his victim on a pasteboard horse, asking for
subscriptions to buy him a live charger. Monsieur Baudoyer was down
for a bale of hay taken from his own forage allowance, and each of the
clerks wrote his little epigram; Vimeux himself, good-natured fellow
that he was, subscribed under the name of "Miss Fairfax."
Handsome clerks of the Vimeux style have their salaries on which to
live, and their good looks by which to make their fortune. Devoted to
masked balls during the carnival, they seek their luck there, though
it often escapes them. Many end the weary round by marrying milliners,
or old women,--sometimes, however, young ones who are charmed with
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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 Maggie: A Girl of the Streets by Stephen Crane: been up to?"
Jimmie, with his face drenched in blood, escaped up a side street,
pursued a short distance by some of the more law-loving, or excited
individuals of the crowd.
Later, from a corner safely dark, he saw the policeman, the
ally and the bartender emerge from the saloon. Pete locked the
doors and then followed up the avenue in the rear of the crowd-
encompassed policeman and his charge.
On first thoughts Jimmie, with his heart throbbing at battle heat,
started to go desperately to the rescue of his friend, but he halted.
"Ah, what deh hell?" he demanded of himself.
Maggie: A Girl of the Streets |
