| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Glimpses of the Moon by Edith Wharton: distance that these things had put between them.
"It was horrible ... seeing them both there together, laid out
in that hideous Pugin chapel at Altringham ... the poor boy
especially. I suppose that's really what's cutting me up now,"
he murmured, almost apologetically.
"Oh, it's more than that--more than you know," she insisted; but
he jerked back: "Now, my dear, don't be edifying, please," and
fumbled for a cigarette in the pocket which was already
beginning to bulge with his miscellaneous properties.
"And now about you--for that's what I came for," he continued,
turning to her with one of his sudden movements. "I couldn't
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Daisy Miller by Henry James: by initiating him into many of the secrets of that social sway which,
as she gave him to understand, she exerted in the American capital.
She admitted that she was very exclusive; but, if he were acquainted with
New York, he would see that one had to be. And her picture of the minutely
hierarchical constitution of the society of that city, which she presented
to him in many different lights, was, to Winterbourne's imagination,
almost oppressively striking.
He immediately perceived, from her tone, that Miss Daisy Miller's
place in the social scale was low. "I am afraid you don't approve
of them," he said.
"They are very common," Mrs. Costello declared. "They are the sort
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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 In a German Pension by Katherine Mansfield: along a little white road with tall black trees on either side, a little
road that led to nowhere, and where nobody walked at all--nobody at all.
11. THE ADVANCED LADY.
"Do you think we might ask her to come with us," said Fraulein Elsa,
retying her pink sash ribbon before my mirror. "You know, although she is
so intellectual, I cannot help feeling convinced that she has some secret
sorrow. And Lisa told me this morning, as she was turning out my room,
that she remains hours and hours by herself, writing; in fact Lisa says she
is writing a book! I suppose that is why she never cares to mingle with
us, and has so little time for her husband and the child."
"Well, YOU ask her," said I. "I have never spoken to the lady."
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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 The Works of Samuel Johnson by Samuel Johnson: This scheme of life seemed pregnant with
inexhaustible variety, and therefore I could not forbear
to congratulate myself upon the wisdom of my
choice. I furnished a large room with all
conveniencies for study; collected books of every kind;
quitted every science at the first perception of disgust;
returned to it again as soon as my former ardour
happened to revive; and having no rival to
depress me by comparison, nor any critick to alarm
me with objections, I spent day after day in profound
tranquillity, with only so much complaisance
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