| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from A Man of Business by Honore de Balzac: made on a subject already exhausted by Rabelais three hundred and
fifty years ago. It was not a little to their credit that the
pyrotechnic display was cut short with a final squib from Malaga.
"It all goes to the shoemakers," she said. "I left a milliner because
she failed twice with my hats. The vixen has been here twenty-seven
times to ask for twenty francs. She did not know that we never have
twenty francs. One has a thousand francs, or one sends to one's notary
for five hundred; but twenty francs I have never had in my life. My
cook and my maid may, perhaps, have so much between them; but for my
own part, I have nothing but credit, and I should lose that if I took
to borrowing small sums. If I were to ask for twenty francs, I should
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Democracy In America, Volume 1 by Alexis de Toqueville: and result in the tyranny of absolutism, without saving to the
people the power so often found necessary of repressing or
destroying their enemy, when he was found in the person of a
single despot.
When, in 1831, Alexis de Tocqueville came to study Democracy
in America, the trial of nearly a half-century of the working of
our system had been made, and it had been proved, by many crucial
tests, to be a government of "liberty regulated by law," with
such results in the development of strength, in population,
wealth, and military and commercial power, as no age had ever
witnessed.
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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 Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates by Howard Pyle: Whereupon, taking our hero (of whom he had grown prodigiously
fond) along with him, our pirate went, without any loss of time,
to visit Sir Thomas Modiford, who was then the royal governor of
all this devil's brew of wickedness.
They found His Excellency seated in a great easy-chair, under the
shadow of a slatted veranda, the floor whereof was paved with
brick. He was clad, for the sake of coolness, only in his shirt,
breeches, and stockings, and he wore slippers on his feet. He
was smoking a great cigarro of tobacco, and a goblet of lime
juice and water and rum stood at his elbow on a table. Here, out
of the glare of the heat, it was all very cool and pleasant, with
Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates |
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 The Yates Pride by Mary E. Wilkins Freeman: important, full of sly and triumphant knowledge.
"Haven't you heard?" asked Mrs. Glynn.
"Yes, haven't you?" asked Ethel.
"Haven't any of you heard?" asked Julia Esterbrook.
"No," admitted Abby, rather feebly. "I don't know as I have."
"Do you mean about Eudora's going so often to the Lancaster
girls' to tea?" asked Mrs. John Bates, with a slight bridle of
possible knowledge.
"I heard of that," said Mrs. Lee, not to be outdone.
"Land, no," replied Mrs. Glynn. "Didn't she always go there? It
isn't that. It is the most unheard-of thing she had done; but no
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