| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from A Simple Soul by Gustave Flaubert: questioning her, learned that she was looking for a cook. The girl did
not know very much, but appeared so willing and so modest in her
requirements, that Madame Aubain finally said:
"Very well, I will give you a trial."
And half an hour later Felicite was installed in her house.
At first she lived in a constant anxiety that was caused by "the style
of the household" and the memory of "Monsieur," that hovered over
everything. Paul and Virginia, the one aged seven, and the other
barely four, seemed made of some precious material; she carried them
pig-a-back, and was greatly mortified when Madame Aubain forbade her
to kiss them every other minute.
A Simple Soul |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Roads of Destiny by O. Henry: covering my old territory in Southern Illinois and Indiana. I will
take the cash first, please."
Perry Dorsey, the teller, was already arranging his cash on the
counter for the examiner's inspection. He knew it was right to a cent,
and he had nothing to fear, but he was nervous and flustered. So was
every man in the bank. There was something so icy and swift, so
impersonal and uncompromising about this man that his very presence
seemed an accusation. He looked to be a man who would never make nor
overlook an error.
Mr. Nettlewick first seized the currency, and with a rapid, almost
juggling motion, counted it by packages. Then he spun the sponge cup
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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 Lucile by Owen Meredith: He that knocketh shall enter: who asks shall obtain:
And who seeketh, he findeth. Remember, Eugene!"
She turn'd to depart.
"Whither? whither?" . . . he said.
She stretch'd forth her hand where, already outspread
On the darken'd horizon, remotely they saw
The French camp-fires kindling.
"See yonder vast host, with its manifold heart
Made as one man's by one hope! The hope 'tis your part
To aid towards achievement, to save from reverse
Mine, through suffering to soothe, and through sickness to nurse.
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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 Figure in the Carpet by Henry James: nuptials. He was immensely stirred up by the anecdote I had
brought from Bridges; it fell in so completely with the sense he
had had from the first that there was more in Vereker than met the
eye. When I remarked that the eye seemed what the printed page had
been expressly invented to meet he immediately accused me of being
spiteful because I had been foiled. Our commerce had always that
pleasant latitude. The thing Vereker had mentioned to me was
exactly the thing he, Corvick, had wanted me to speak of in my
review. On my suggesting at last that with the assistance I had
now given him he would doubtless be prepared to speak of it himself
he admitted freely that before doing this there was more he must
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