| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Cousin Pons by Honore de Balzac: "I am growing too old," he told himself. "The world has a horror of
old age and poverty--two ugly things. After this I will not go
anywhere unless I am asked."
Heroic resolve!
Downstairs the great gate was shut, as it usually is in houses
occupied by the proprietor; the kitchen stood exactly opposite the
porter's lodge, and the door was open. Pons was obliged to listen
while Madeleine told the servants the whole story amid the laughter of
the servants. She had not expected him to leave so soon. The footman
loudly applauded a joke at the expense of a visitor who was always
coming to the house and never gave you more than three francs at the
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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 Reef by Edith Wharton: day when, ostensibly driving through its gates at her
husband's side, she had actually been carried there on a
cloud of iris-winged visions.
The possibilities which the place had then represented were
still vividly present to her. The mere phrase "a French
chateau" had called up to her youthful fancy a throng of
romantic associations, poetic, pictorial and emotional; and
the serene face of the old house seated in its park among
the poplar-bordered meadows of middle France, had seemed, on
her first sight of it, to hold out to her a fate as noble
and dignified as its own mien.
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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 Chessmen of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs: we shall both die," she cried.
"And who would live a slave in Manator?" asked Tara of Helium.
"I am not so brave as thou," said the slave girl, "and life is
sweet and there is always hope."
"Life is sweet," agreed Tara of Helium, "but honor is sacred. But
do not fear. When they come I shall tell them the truth--that you
had no hand in this and no opportunity to prevent it."
For a moment the slave girl seemed to be thinking deeply.
Suddenly her eyes lighted. "There is a way, perhaps," she said,
"to turn suspicion from us. He has the key to this chamber upon
him. Let us open the door and drag him out--maybe we shall find a
The Chessmen of Mars |
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 From London to Land's End by Daniel Defoe: as he could spare time from his other works, and money from his
little stock.
In order to furnish himself with carts, waggons, ploughs, harrows,
wheel-barrows, hurdles, and all such necessary utensils of
husbandry, there would be an absolute necessity of wheelwrights or
cartwrights, one at least to each division.
Thus, by the way, there would be employed three servants to each
farmer, that makes sixty persons.
Four families of wheelwrights, one to each division--which, suppose
five in a family, makes twenty persons. Suppose four head-
carpenters, with each three men; and as at first all would be
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