| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Duchess of Padua by Oscar Wilde: This is the Duke of Parma's rightful heir.
JEPPO
I always thought him noble.
GUIDO
I confess
That with the purport of a just revenge,
A most just vengeance on a man of blood,
I entered the Duke's household, served his will,
Sat at his board, drank of his wine, and was
His intimate: so much I will confess,
And this too, that I waited till he grew
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Madame Firmiani by Honore de Balzac: "Good heavens!" cried Monsieur de Bourbonne, interrupting his nephew,
"surely you have not been such a fool as to tell that woman about your
father's affair with the Bourgneufs? Women know more about wasting a
fortune than making one."
"They know about integrity. But let me read on, uncle."
"'Octave, no power on earth has authority to change the principles
of honor. Look into your conscience and ask it by what name you
are to call the action by which you hold your property.'"
The nephew looked at the uncle, who lowered his head.
"'I will not tell you all the thoughts that assail me; they can be
reduced to one,--this is it: I cannot respect the man who,
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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 Ursula by Honore de Balzac: he encountered a man who had known the same world and spoken the same
language as himself; with whom he could exchange ideas, and who went
to bed late. After Monsieur de Jordy, the Abbe Chaperon, and Minoret
had passed one evening together they found so much pleasure in it that
the priest and soldier returned every night regularly at nine o'clock,
the hour at which, little Ursula having gone to bed, the doctor was
free. All three would then sit up till midnight or one o'clock.
After a time this trio became a quartette. Another man to whom life
was known, and who owed to his practical training as a lawyer, the
indulgence, knowledge, observation, shrewdness, and talent for
conversation which the soldier, doctor, and priest owed to their
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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 House of Mirth by Edith Wharton: crazy outfit had held together so long. Her sense of being
involved in the crash, instead of merely witnessing it from the
road, was intensified by the way in which Dorset, through his
furies of denunciation and wild reactions of self-contempt, made
her feel the need he had of her, the place she had taken in his
life. But for her, what ear would have been open to his cries?
And what hand but hers could drag him up again to a footing of
sanity and self-respect? All through the stress of the struggle
with him, she had been conscious of something faintly maternal in
her efforts to guide and uplift him. But for the present, if he
clung to her, it was not in order to be dragged up, but to feel
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