| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Madame Firmiani by Honore de Balzac: The former guardsman stayed, with apparent impertinence, after the
other guests had left the salons; and Madame Firmiani found him
sitting quietly before her in an armchair, evidently determined to
remain, with the pertinacity of a fly which we are forced to kill to
get rid of it. The hands of the clock marked two in the morning.
"Madame," said the old gentlemen, as Madame Firmiani rose, hoping to
make him understand that it was her good pleasure he should go,
"Madame, I am the uncle of Monsieur Octave de Camps."
Madame Firmiani immediately sat down again, and showed her emotion. In
spite of his sagacity the old Planter was unable to decide whether she
turned pale from shame or pleasure. There are pleasures, delicious
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Pocket Diary Found in the Snow by Grace Isabel Colbron and Augusta Groner: the lettering uncertain, as if scribbled in great haste and in
agitation, the sentence, "Please take this to the nearest police
station."
The words were like a cry for help, frozen on to the ugly paper.
Amster shivered; he had a feeling that this was a matter of life
and death.
The wagon tracks in the lonely street, the broken pieces of glass
and the drops of blood, showing that some occupant of the vehicle
had broken the window, in the hope of escape, perhaps, or to throw
out the package which should bring assistance - all these facts
grouped themselves together in the brain of the intelligent
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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 Altar of the Dead by Henry James: She looked at him with a larger allowance, doing this gentleness
justice. "How can I then, on this new knowledge of my own, ask you
to continue to live with it?"
"I set up my altar, with its multiplied meanings," Stransom began;
but she quietly interrupted him.
"You set up your altar, and when I wanted one most I found it
magnificently ready. I used it with the gratitude I've always
shown you, for I knew it from of old to be dedicated to Death. I
told you long ago that my Dead weren't many. Yours were, but all
you had done for them was none too much for MY worship! You had
placed a great light for Each - I gathered them together for One!"
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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 Tour Through Eastern Counties of England by Daniel Defoe: and seldom held it above half a year, or a year at most; "And
then," said he, "we go to the uplands again and fetch another;" so
that marrying of wives was reckoned a kind of good farm to them.
It is true the fellow told this in a kind of drollery and mirth;
but the fact, for all that, is certainly true; and that they have
abundance of wives by that very means. Nor is it less true that
the inhabitants in these places do not hold it out, as in other
countries, and as first you seldom meet with very ancient people
among the poor, as in other places we do, so, take it one with
another, not one-half of the inhabitants are natives of the place;
but such as from other countries or in other parts of this country
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