| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Albert Savarus by Honore de Balzac: accompanied Madame de Watteville to other houses to spend the evening,
without being allowed to talk more than the maternal rule permitted.
At eighteen Mademoiselle de Watteville was a slight, thin girl with a
flat figure, fair, colorless, and insignificant to the last degree.
Her eyes, of a very light blue, borrowed beauty from their lashes,
which, when downcast, threw a shadow on her cheeks. A few freckles
marred the whiteness of her forehead, which was shapely enough. Her
face was exactly like those of Albert Durer's saints, or those of the
painters before Perugino; the same plump, though slender modeling, the
same delicacy saddened by ecstasy, the same severe guilelessness.
Everything about her, even to her attitude, was suggestive of those
Albert Savarus |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe: slave with his hatchet, and who afterwards intended to have
murdered the Spaniards.
I looked upon their case to have been worse at this time than mine
was at any time, after I first discovered the grains of barley and
rice, and got into the manner of planting and raising my corn, and
my tame cattle; for now they had, as I may say, a hundred wolves
upon the island, which would devour everything they could come at,
yet could be hardly come at themselves.
When they saw what their circumstances were, the first thing they
concluded was, that they would, if possible, drive the savages up
to the farther part of the island, south-west, that if any more
Robinson Crusoe |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Breaking Point by Mary Roberts Rinehart: But Dick was not listening, save to some bitter inner voice, for
suddenly he turned his horse around on the trail. "Get out of
the way," he said, "I'm going back to give myself up."
He would have done it, probably, would have crowded past Bassett
on the narrow trail and headed back toward capture, but for his
horse. It balked and whirled on the ledge, but it would not pass
Bassett. Dick swore and kicked it, his face ugly and determined,
but it refused sullenly. He slid out of the saddle then and tried
to drag it on, but he was suddenly weak and sick. He staggered.
Bassett was off his horse in a moment and caught him. He eased
him onto a boulder, and he sat there, his shoulders sagging and
The Breaking Point |
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 Tom Sawyer, Detective by Mark Twain: Jubiter is a twin."
"What's t'other twin like?"
"Just exactly like Jubiter--so they say; used to was,
anyway, but he hain't been seen for seven years.
He got to robbing when he was nineteen or twenty,
and they jailed him; but he broke jail and got away--up
North here, somers. They used to hear about him robbing
and burglaring now and then, but that was years ago.
He's dead, now. At least that's what they say.
They don't hear about him any more."
"What was his name?"
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