| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Coxon Fund by Henry James: till much later that I found this had not been the case with Kent
Mulville, whose hope for the best never twirled the thumbs of him
more placidly than when he happened to know the worst. He had
known it on the occasion I speak of--that is immediately after. He
was impenetrable then, but ultimately confessed. What he confessed
was more than I shall now venture to make public. It was of course
familiar to me that Saltram was incapable of keeping the
engagements which, after their separation, he had entered into with
regard to his wife, a deeply wronged, justly resentful, quite
irreproachable and insufferable person. She often appeared at my
chambers to talk over his lapses; for if, as she declared, she had
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Heroes by Charles Kingsley: they fought with young firs and pines. But Heracles killed
them all before morn with his deadly poisoned arrows; but
among them, in the darkness, he slew Cyzicus the kindly
prince.
Then they got to their ship and to their oars, and Tiphys
bade them cast off the hawsers and go to sea. But as he
spoke a whirlwind came, and spun the ARGO round, and twisted
the hawsers together, so that no man could loose them. Then
Tiphys dropped the rudder from his hand, and cried, 'This
comes from the Gods above.' But Jason went forward, and
asked counsel of the magic bough.
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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 In the Cage by Henry James: A strange emotion had come to her, and she felt indeed excitement
within excitement; above all a conscious joy in testing him with
chances he didn't take. She had an intense desire he should know
the type she really conformed to without her doing anything so low
as tell him, and he had surely begun to know it from the moment he
didn't seize the opportunities into which a common man would
promptly have blundered. These were on the mere awkward surface,
and THEIR relation was beautiful behind and below them. She had
questioned so little on the way what they might be doing that as
soon as they were seated she took straight hold of it. Her hours,
her confinement, the many conditions of service in the post-office,
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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 Sons of the Soil by Honore de Balzac: according as the searchers approach or leave the hidden article.
Little Genevieve took it into her head to hide the bellows in Arsene's
bed. The bellows could not be found, and the game came to an end;
Genevieve was taken home by her mother and forgot to put the bellows
back on the nail. Arsene and her aunt searched more than a week for
them; then they stopped searching and managed to do without them, the
old abbe blowing his fire with an air-cane made in the days when air-
canes were the fashion,--a fashion which was no doubt introduced by
some courtier of the reign of Henri III. At last, about a month before
her death, the housekeeper, after a dinner at which the Abbe Mouchon,
the Niseron family, and the curate of Soulanges were present, returned
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