| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Letters of Two Brides by Honore de Balzac: The mud in which they are set is falling away in places.
Thanks to an iron railing at the entrance facing the road, this simple
farm has a certain air of being a country-seat. The railing, long
sought with tears, is so emaciated that it recalled Sister Angelique
to me. A flight of stone steps leads to the door, which is protected
by a pent-house roof, such as no peasant on the Loire would tolerate
for his coquettish white stone house, with its blue roof, glittering
in the sun. The garden and surrounding walks are horribly dusty, and
the trees seem burnt up. It is easy to see that for years the Baron's
life has been a mere rising up and going to bed again, day after day,
without a thought beyond that of piling up coppers. He eats the same
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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 Altar of the Dead by Henry James: bereavement was still fresh, crossed the sea for what people in
such predicaments call a little change. He had found the little
change indeed, he had brought the little change back; it was the
little change that stood there and that, do what he would, he
couldn't, while he showed those high front teeth of his, look other
than a conscious ass about. They were going into the shop, Mrs.
Creston said, and she begged Mr. Stransom to come with them and
help to decide. He thanked her, opening his watch and pleading an
engagement for which he was already late, and they parted while she
shrieked into the fog, "Mind now you come to see me right away!"
Creston had had the delicacy not to suggest that, and Stransom
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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 Thuvia, Maid of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs: Then he turned to Carthoris, but ever his gaze wandered
to the perfect lines of Thuvia's glorious figure, which the
harness of a Barsoomian princess accentuated rather
than concealed.
"Who are you," he asked, "who knows not the etiquette
of the court of the last of jeddaks?"
"I am Carthoris, Prince of Helium," replied the Heliumite.
"And this is Thuvia, Princess of Ptarth. In the
courts of our fathers men do not prostrate themselves
before royalty. Not since the First Born tore their
immortal goddess limb from limb have men crawled upon
Thuvia, Maid 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 The Deserted Woman by Honore de Balzac: the Marquise to marry M. de Nueil.
So, after a nine years' lease of happiness, the sweetest agreement to
which a woman ever put her hand, M. de Nueil and Mme. de Beauseant
were still in a position quite as natural and quite as false as at the
beginning of their adventure. And yet they had reached a fatal crisis,
which may be stated as clearly as any problem in mathematics.
Mme. la Comtesse de Nueil, Gaston's mother, a strait-laced and
virtuous person, who had made the late Baron happy in strictly legal
fashion would never consent to meet Mme. de Beauseant. Mme. de
Beauseant quite understood that the worthy dowager must of necessity
be her enemy, and that she would try to draw Gaston from his
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