| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Breaking Point by Mary Roberts Rinehart: past. One night Gregory had come back and told her Jean Melis was
in the balcony.
The valet was older and heavier, but he had recognized him.
"Did he see you?" was her first question.
"Yes. What about it? He never saw me but once, and that was
at night and out of doors."
"Sometimes I think I can't stand it, Fred. The eternal suspense,
the waiting for something to happen."
"If anything was going to happen it would have happened months ago.
Bassett has given it up. And Jud's dead. Even Wilkins knows that."
She turned on him angrily.
The Breaking Point |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Complete Angler by Izaak Walton: doubtless; for nature is content with a little. And yet you shall hardly
meet with a man that complains not of some want; though he, indeed,
wants nothing but his will; it may be, nothing but his will of his poor
neighbour, for not worshipping, or not flattering him: and thus, when
we might be happy and quiet, we create trouble to ourselves. I have
heard of a man that was angry with himself because he was no taller;
and of a woman that broke her looking-glass because it would not shew
her face to be as young and handsome as her next neighbour's was. And
I knew another to whom God had given health and plenty; but a wife
that nature had made peevish, and her husband's riches had made purse-
proud; and must, because she was rich, and for no other virtue, sit in 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 Catherine de Medici by Honore de Balzac: communicable form, took on a multitude of garments and became, as it
were, the people itself, instead of remaining a sort of axiomatic
divinity, there were two multitudes to combat,--the multitude of
ideas, and the multitude of men. The royal power succumbed in that
warfare, and we are now assisting, in France, at its last combination
with elements which render its existence difficult, not to say
impossible. Power is action, and the elective principle is discussion.
There is no policy, no statesmanship possible where discussion is
permanent.
Therefore we ought to recognize the grandeur of the woman who had the
eyes to see this future and fought it bravely. That the house of
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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 New Arabian Nights by Robert Louis Stevenson: considerable favour."
"Your Highness," said the Major, "must pardon my bluntness. I am
unable to hide what I know. For some time back I have suspected
Major Hammersmith, but Mr. Godall is unmistakable. To seek two men
in London unacquainted with Prince Florizel of Bohemia was to ask
too much at Fortune's hands."
"Prince Florizel!" cried Brackenbury in amazement.
And he gazed with the deepest interest on the features of the
celebrated personage before him.
"I shall not lament the loss of my incognito," remarked the Prince,
"for it enables me to thank you with the more authority. You would
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