| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from A Second Home by Honore de Balzac: To enter into the interests that lay beneath this introduction to my
tale, we must for a moment forget the actors in it, and look back at
certain previous incidents, of which the last was closely concerned
with the death of Madame Crochard. The two parts will then form a
whole--a story which, by a law peculiar to life in Paris, was made up
of two distinct sets of actions.
Towards the close of the month of November 1805, a young barrister,
aged about six-and-twenty, was going down the stairs of the hotel
where the High Chancellor of the Empire resided, at about three
o'clock one morning. Having reached the courtyard in full evening
dress, under a keen frost, he could not help giving vent to an
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Prince Otto by Robert Louis Stevenson: your vanity! Before you try to govern kingdoms, you should first be
able to behave yourself at home; home is the woman's kingdom.' She
paused and laughed a little, strangely to hear and look upon. 'I
will tell you one of the things,' she said, 'that were to stay
unspoken. Von Rosen is a better women than you, my Princess, though
you will never have the pain of understanding it; and when I took
the Prince your order, and looked upon his face, my soul was melted
- O, I am frank - here, within my arms, I offered him repose!' She
advanced a step superbly as she spoke, with outstretched arms; and
Seraphina shrank. 'Do not be alarmed!' the Countess cried; 'I am
not offering that hermitage to you; in all the world there is but
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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 Collection of Antiquities by Honore de Balzac: studies in Paris?
Du Croisier wrote to Victurnien, telling him that the Kellers had been
instructed to advance no more money; and that letter was timed to
arrive just as the Duchesse de Maufrigneuse was in the utmost
perplexity, and the Comte d'Esgrignon consumed by the sense of poverty
as dreadful as it was cunningly hidden. The wretched young man was
exerting all his ingenuity to seem as if he were wealthy!
Now in the letter which informed the victim that in future the Kellers
would make no further advances without security, there was a tolerably
wide space left between the forms of an exaggerated respect and the
signature. It was quite easy to tear off the best part of the letter
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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 Altar of the Dead by Henry James: tired, and he always drove now; the action of his heart was weak
and gave him none of the reassurance conferred by the action of his
fancy. None the less he returned yet again, returned several
times, and finally, during six months, haunted the place with a
renewal of frequency and a strain of impatience. In winter the
church was unwarmed and exposure to cold forbidden him, but the
glow of his shrine was an influence in which he could almost bask.
He sat and wondered to what he had reduced his absent associate and
what she now did with the hours of her absence. There were other
churches, there were other altars, there were other candles; in one
way or another her piety would still operate; he couldn't
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