| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Persuasion by Jane Austen: She endeavoured to be composed, and to be just. Without emulating
the feelings of an Emma towards her Henry, she would have
attended on Louisa with a zeal above the common claims of regard,
for his sake; and she hoped he would not long be so unjust
as to suppose she would shrink unnecessarily from the office of a friend.
In the mean while she was in the carriage. He had handed them both in,
and placed himself between them; and in this manner, under these
circumstances, full of astonishment and emotion to Anne, she quitted Lyme.
How the long stage would pass; how it was to affect their manners;
what was to be their sort of intercourse, she could not foresee.
It was all quite natural, however. He was devoted to Henrietta;
Persuasion |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Lily of the Valley by Honore de Balzac: quickly, "what does that woman call you?"
"'Amedee,'" I answered, "'Felix' is a being apart, who belongs to none
but you."
"'Henriette' is slow to die," she said, with a gentle smile, "but die
she will at the first effort of the humble Christian, the self-
respecting mother; she whose virtue tottered yesterday and is firm
to-day. What may I say to you? This. My life has been, and is,
consistent with itself in all its circumstances, great and small. The
heart to which the rootlets of my first affection should have clung,
my mother's heart, was closed to me, in spite of my persistence in
seeking a cleft through which they might have slipped. I was a girl; I
The Lily of the Valley |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Pupil by Henry James: out for something, strolling drearily, in mackintoshes, under the
arcades; but still, in spite of mackintoshes, unmistakeable men of
the world. Paula and Amy were in bed - it might have been thought
they were staying there to keep warm. Pemberton looked askance at
the boy at his side, to see to what extent he was conscious of
these dark omens. But Morgan, luckily for him, was now mainly
conscious of growing taller and stronger and indeed of being in his
fifteenth year. This fact was intensely interesting to him and the
basis of a private theory - which, however, he had imparted to his
tutor - that in a little while he should stand on his own feet. He
considered that the situation would change - that in short he
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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 The Hated Son by Honore de Balzac: to be marvellous for the treatment of serious cases. But not only had
Maitre Antoine Beauvouloir (the name of the present bonesetter) a
father and grandfather who were famous practitioners, from whom he
inherited important traditions, he was also learned in medicine, and
was given to the study of natural science. The country people saw his
study full of books and other strange things which gave to his
successes a coloring of magic. Without passing strictly for a
sorcerer, Antoine Beauvouloir impressed the populace through a
circumference of a hundred miles with respect akin to terror, and
(what was far more really dangerous for himself) he held in his power
many secrets of life and death which concerned the noble families of
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