| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Malbone: An Oldport Romance by Thomas Wentworth Higginson: lips. Daily and hourly he felt the last agony of a weak and
passionate nature,--to dream of one woman in another's arms.
She, too, watched him with an ever-increasing instinct of
danger, studied with a chilly terror the workings of his face,
weighed and reweighed his words in absence, agonized herself
with new and ever new suspicions; and then, when these had
accumulated beyond endurance, seized them convulsively and
threw them all away. Then, coming back to him with a great
overwhelming ardor of affection, she poured upon him more and
more in proportion as he gave her less.
Sometimes in these moments of renewed affection he half gave
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from A Prince of Bohemia by Honore de Balzac: some of us! . . . Claudine never wearies; you can always count upon
her. It is not love, I tell her, it is infatuation. She writes to me
every day; I do not read her letters; she found that out, but still
she writes. See here; there are two hundred letters in this casket.
She begs me to wipe my razors on one of her letters every day, and I
punctually do so. She thinks, and rightly, that the sight of her
handwriting will put me in mind of her.'
"La Palferine was dressing as he told us this. I took up the letter
which he was about to put to this use, read it, and kept it, as he did
not ask to have it back. Here it is. I looked for it, and found it as
I promised.
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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 Cromwell by William Shakespeare: Than any way I looked for or deserved,
Yet my life no longer with me dwell,
Than I prove true unto my Sovereign:
What say you, master Cromwell? have you those
writings?
Aye, or no?
CROMWELL.
Here are the writings, and upon my knees,
I give them up unto the worthy Dukes
Of Suffolk and of Norfolk: he was my Master,
And each virtuous part,
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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 Red Inn by Honore de Balzac: somnambulism, and so protect my friend; but there I rambled and
contradicted myself. No, I am lost. I read my condemnation in the eyes
of my judges. They smiled incredulously. All is over. No more
uncertainty. To-morrow I shall be shot. I am not thinking of myself,"
he went on after a pause, "but of my poor mother." Then he stopped,
looked up to heaven, and shed no tears; his eyes were dry and strongly
convulsed. "Frederic--"
["Ah! true," cried Monsieur Hermann, with an air of triumph. "Yes, the
other's name was Frederic, Frederic! I remember now!"
My neighbor touched my foot, and made me a sign to look at Monsieur
Taillefer. The former purveyor had negligently dropped his hand over
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