| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton: If Madame Olenska had not spoken of his visit it might
seem awkward that he should. Yet not to do so gave
the affair an air of mystery that he disliked. To shake
off the question he began to talk of their own plans,
their future, and Mrs. Welland's insistence on a long
engagement.
"If you call it long! Isabel Chivers and Reggie were
engaged for two years: Grace and Thorley for nearly a
year and a half. Why aren't we very well off as we
are?"
It was the traditional maidenly interrogation, and he
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Twenty Years After by Alexandre Dumas: Italy; next, after Monsieur de Conde, comes the Duke of
Orleans."
"What are you saying? The first prince of the blood, the
king's uncle!"
"No! not the first prince of the blood, not the king's
uncle, but the base conspirator, the soul of every cabal,
who pretends to lead the brave people who are weak enough to
believe in the honor of a prince of the blood -- not the
prince nearest to the throne, not the king's uncle, I
repeat, but the murderer of Chalais, of Montmorency and of
Cinq-Mars, who is playing now the same game he played long
Twenty Years After |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Moby Dick by Herman Melville: appellation original with the whalemen, and even so is the nature of
the substance. It is an ineffably oozy, stringy affair, most
frequently found in the tubs of sperm, after a prolonged squeezing,
and subsequent decanting. I hold it to be the wondrously thin,
ruptured membranes of the case, coalescing.
Gurry, so called, is a term properly belonging to right whalemen, but
sometimes incidentally used by the sperm fishermen. It designates
the dark, glutinous substance which is scraped off the back of the
Greenland or right whale, and much of which covers the decks of those
inferior souls who hunt that ignoble Leviathan.
Nippers. Strictly this word is not indigenous to the whale's
Moby Dick |
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 Duchesse de Langeais by Honore de Balzac: Each time, in reply to coquettish questioning glances, the
Duchess received a respectful bow, and smiles tinged with such
savage irony, that all her apprehensions over the card in the
morning were revived at night. Our lives are simply such as our
feelings shape them for us; and the feelings of these two had
hollowed out a great gulf between them
The Comtesse de Serizy, the Marquis de Ronquerolles's sister,
gave a great ball at the beginning of the following week, and Mme
de Langeais was sure to go to it. Armand was the first person
whom the Duchess saw when she came into the room, and this time
Armand was looking out for her, or so she thought at least. The
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