| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Marriage Contract by Honore de Balzac: After seeing the world and life, after losing several illusions, after
dissipating all the loose capital which his father had amassed, there
came a time when, in order to continue his way of life, Paul was
forced to draw upon the territorial revenues which his notary was
laying by. At this critical moment, seized by one of the so-called
virtuous impulses, he determined to leave Paris, return to Bordeaux,
regulate his affairs, lead the life of a country gentleman at
Lanstrac, improve his property, marry, and become, in the end, a
deputy.
Paul was a count; nobility was once more of matrimonial value; he
could, and he ought to make a good marriage. While many women desire a
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Father Sergius by Leo Tolstoy: beyond control.
'Marie. Why?'
She took his hand and kissed it, and then put her arm round his
waist and pressed him to herself.
'What are you doing?' he said. 'Marie, you are a devil!'
'Oh, perhaps. What does it matter?'
And embracing him she sat down with him on the bed.
At dawn he went out into the porch.
'Can this all have happened? Her father will come and she will
tell him everything. She is a devil! What am I to do? Here is
the axe with which I chopped off my finger.' He snatched up the
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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 Idylls of the King by Alfred Tennyson: Was toward me as of old; till one fair morn,
I walking to and fro beside a stream
That flashed across her orchard underneath
Her castle-walls, she stole upon my walk,
And calling me the greatest of all knights,
Embraced me, and so kissed me the first time,
And gave herself and all her wealth to me.
Then I remembered Arthur's warning word,
That most of us would follow wandering fires,
And the Quest faded in my heart. Anon,
The heads of all her people drew to me,
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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 Shakespeare's Sonnets by William Shakespeare: With April's first-born flowers, and all things rare,
That heaven's air in this huge rondure hems.
O! let me, true in love, but truly write,
And then believe me, my love is as fair
As any mother's child, though not so bright
As those gold candles fix'd in heaven's air:
Let them say more that like of hearsay well;
I will not praise that purpose not to sell.
XXII
My glass shall not persuade me I am old,
So long as youth and thou are of one date;
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