| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Gentle Grafter by O. Henry: "Andy fumbles around awhile in the closet and comes out dressed in a
suit with brown and yellow checks as big as your hand. His vest is red
with blue dots, and he wears a high silk hat. I noticed he'd soaked
his sandy mustache in a kind of blue ink.
"'Great Barnums?' says I. 'You're a ringer for a circus thimblerig
man.'
"'Right,' says Andy. 'Is the buggy outside? Wait here till I come
back. I won't be long.'
"Two hours afterwards Andy steps into the room and lays a wad of money
on the table.
"'Eight hundred and sixty dollars,' said he. 'Let me tell you. He was
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Symposium by Plato: I am now, or rather as I shall be when Agathon has spoken, you would,
indeed, be in a great strait.
You want to cast a spell over me, Socrates, said Agathon, in the hope that
I may be disconcerted at the expectation raised among the audience that I
shall speak well.
I should be strangely forgetful, Agathon replied Socrates, of the courage
and magnanimity which you showed when your own compositions were about to
be exhibited, and you came upon the stage with the actors and faced the
vast theatre altogether undismayed, if I thought that your nerves could be
fluttered at a small party of friends.
Do you think, Socrates, said Agathon, that my head is so full of 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 A Drama on the Seashore by Honore de Balzac: his body remaining rigid as though he were petrified. Then, having
cast upon us that look which struck us like a blow, he turned his eyes
once more to the limitless ocean, and gazed upon it, in spite of its
dazzling light, as eagles gaze at the sun, without lowering his
eyelids. Try to remember, dear uncle, one of those old oaks, whose
knotty trunks, from which the branches have been lopped, rise with
weird power in some lonely place, and you will have an image of this
man. Here was a ruined Herculean frame, the face of an Olympian Jove,
destroyed by age, by hard sea toil, by grief, by common food, and
blackened as it were by lightning. Looking at his hard and hairy
hands, I saw that the sinews stood out like cords of iron. Everything
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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 Camille by Alexandre Dumas: one whom she should love. But those who had loved Marguerite were
not to be counted, nor those whom she had loved.
In this girl there was at once the virgin whom a mere nothing had
turned into a courtesan, and the courtesan whom a mere nothing
would have turned into the most loving and the purest of virgins.
Marguerite had still pride and independence, two sentiments
which, if they are wounded, can be the equivalent of a sense of
shame. I did not speak a word; my soul seemed to have passed into
my heart and my heart into my eyes.
"So," said she all at once, "it was you who came to inquire after
me when I was ill?"
Camille |
