| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from An Episode Under the Terror by Honore de Balzac: people of condition were so different from those of other classes in
former times that a noble was easily known, and the shopkeeper's wife
felt persuaded that her customer was a ci-devant, and that she had
been about the Court.
"Madame," she began with involuntary respect, forgetting that the
title was proscribed.
But the old lady made no answer. She was staring fixedly at the shop
windows as though some dreadful thing had taken shape against the
panes. The pastry-cook came back at that moment, and drew the lady
from her musings, by holding out a little cardboard box wrapped in
blue paper.
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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 Breaking Point by Mary Roberts Rinehart: kept to it automatically. He felt no surprise and no relief when
he saw a cabin in a clearing and a woman in the doorway, watching
him with curious eyes. He pulled himself together and made a final
effort, but without much interest in the result.
"I wonder if you could give me some food?" he said. "I have lost
my horse and I've been wandering all night."
"I guess I can," she replied, not unamiably. "You look as though
you need it, and a wash, too. There's a basin and a pail of water
on that bench."
But when she came out later to call him to breakfast she found
him sitting on the bench and the pail overturned on the ground.
The Breaking Point |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Mansfield Park by Jane Austen: if not of the conversation.
"I have been so little addicted to take my opinions from
my uncle," said Miss Crawford, "that I can hardly suppose--
and since you push me so hard, I must observe, that I am
not entirely without the means of seeing what clergymen are,
being at this present time the guest of my own brother,
Dr. Grant. And though Dr. Grant is most kind and obliging
to me, and though he is really a gentleman, and, I dare say,
a good scholar and clever, and often preaches good sermons,
and is very respectable, _I_ see him to be an indolent,
selfish _bon_ _vivant_, who must have his palate consulted
Mansfield Park |
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 Westward Ho! by Charles Kingsley: pleasure, that graceful old English fashion of saluting every lady
on the cheek at meeting, which (like the old Dutch fashion of
asking young ladies out to feasts without their mothers) used to
give such cause of brutal calumny and scandal to the coarse minds
of Romish visitors from the Continent; and he had seen, too, fuming
with jealous rage, more than one Bideford burgher, redolent of
onions, profane in that way the velvet cheek of Rose Salterne.
So, one day, he offered his salute in like wise; but be did it when
she was alone; for something within (perhaps a guilty conscience)
whispered that it might be hardly politic to make the proffer in
her father's presence: however, to his astonishment, he received a
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