| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Yates Pride by Mary E. Wilkins Freeman: nor of age reigned in her face; her grace had surmounted with
triumphant ease the slope of every year. Eudora passed out of
sight with the baby-carriage, lifting her proud lady-head under
the soft droop of the spring boughs; and her inspectors, whom she
had not seen, moved back from the Glynn windows with exclamations
of astonishment.
"I wonder," said Abby, "whether she will have that baby call her
ma or aunty."
Meantime Eudora passed down the village street until she reached
the Lancaster house, about half a mile away on the same side.
There dwelt the Misses Amelia and Anna Lancaster, who were about
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Paz by Honore de Balzac: its brilliant colors being crossed upon the bosom showed the spring of
the neck,--its whiteness contrasting delightfully against the tones of
a guipure lace which lay upon her shoulders. Her eyes and their long
black lashes added at this moment to the expression of curiosity which
puckered her pretty mouth. On the forehead, which was well modelled,
an observer would have noticed a roundness characteristic of the true
Parisian woman,--self-willed, merry, well-informed, but inaccessible
to vulgar seductions. Her hands, which were almost transparent, were
hanging down at the end of each arm of her chair; the tapering
fingers, slightly turned up at their points, showed nails like
almonds, which caught the light. Adam smiled at his wife's impatience,
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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 The Duchesse de Langeais by Honore de Balzac: foreboding crossed her mind, but the thought was vague as a
presentiment of disaster. When her eyes fell on the name, it
seemed to her that she felt the touch of the implacable man's
strong hand in her hair; sometimes the words seemed like a
prognostication of a vengeance which her lively intellect
invented in the most shocking forms. She had studied him too
well not to dread him. Would he murder her, she wondered? Would
that bull-necked man dash out her vitals by flinging her over his
head? Would he trample her body under his feet? When, where,
and how would he get her into his power? Would he make her
suffer very much, and what kind of pain would he inflict? She
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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 Gorgias by Plato: Athens and in other states, who have fulfilled their trust righteously; and
there is one who is quite famous all over Hellas, Aristeides, the son of
Lysimachus. But, in general, great men are also bad, my friend.
As I was saying, Rhadamanthus, when he gets a soul of the bad kind, knows
nothing about him, neither who he is, nor who his parents are; he knows
only that he has got hold of a villain; and seeing this, he stamps him as
curable or incurable, and sends him away to Tartarus, whither he goes and
receives his proper recompense. Or, again, he looks with admiration on the
soul of some just one who has lived in holiness and truth; he may have been
a private man or not; and I should say, Callicles, that he is most likely
to have been a philosopher who has done his own work, and not troubled
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