| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Modeste Mignon by Honore de Balzac: his flowers and all the little proofs of tenderness with which it is
proper to surround the lady of our choice; she even worked him a
purse, believing in such ties,--strong indeed to noble souls, but
cobwebs for the Gobenheims, the Vilquins, and the Althors.
Some time during the spring which followed the removal of Madame
Mignon and her daughter to the Chalet, Francisque Althor came to dine
with the Vilquins. Happening to see Modeste over the wall at the foot
of the lawn, he turned away his head. Six weeks later he married the
eldest Mademoiselle Vilquin. In this way Modeste, young, beautiful,
and of high birth, learned the lesson that for three whole months of
her engagement she had been nothing more than Mademoiselle Million.
Modeste Mignon |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Madame Firmiani by Honore de Balzac: Such mysterious revelations are imperatively needed in order to tell
this simple history, in which we seek to interest those souls that are
naturally grave and reflective and find their sustenance in tender
emotions. If the writer, like the surgeon beside his dying friend, is
filled with a species of reverence for the subject he is handling,
should not the reader share in that inexplicable feeling? Is it so
difficult to put ourselves in unison with the vague and nervous
sadness which casts its gray tints all about us, and is, in fact, a
semi-illness, the gentle sufferings of which are often pleasing? If
the reader is of those who sometimes think upon the dear ones they
have lost, if he is alone, if the day is waning or the night has come,
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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 Varieties of Religious Experience by William James: supposed to be his birthright. To certain huckstering kinds of
consideration he thanked God he was forever inaccessible, and if
in life's vicissitudes he should become destitute through their
lack, he was glad to think that with his sheer valor he was all
the freer to work out his salvation. "Wer nur selbst was hatte,"
says Lessing's Tempelherr, in Nathan the Wise, "mein Gott, mein
Gott, ich habe nichts!" This ideal of the well-born man without
possessions was embodied in knight-errantry and templardom; and,
hideously corrupted as it has always been, it still dominates
sentimentally, if not practically, the military and aristocratic
view of life. We glorify the soldier as the man absolutely
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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 Where There's A Will by Mary Roberts Rinehart: she was lying on the cot and she didn't look up.
"Sleeping?" I asked in a whisper.
"Grumping!" Mr. Dick answered. He went over and stood looking
down at her with his hands in his pockets and his hair
ruffled as if he'd been running his fingers through it. She
never moved a shoulder.
"Dorothy," he said. "Here's Minnie."
She pretended not to hear.
"Dorothy!" he repeated. "I wish you wouldn't be such a g--
Confound it, Dolly, be reasonable. Do you want to make me look
like a fool?"
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