| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Bab:A Sub-Deb, Mary Roberts Rinehart by Mary Roberts Rinehart: But I got it.
"I'll thank you to burn your own things," I said with dignaty. And
I went back to the drawing room.
The girls and Carter Brooks were talking in an undertone when I got
there. I knew it was about me. And Jane came over to me and put her
arm around me.
"You poor thing!" she said. "Just fight it out. We're all with you."
"I'm so helpless, Jane." I put all the despair I could into my
voice. For after all, if they were going to talk about my private
Affairs behind my back, I felt that they might as well have
something to talk about. As Jane's second couzin once removed is in
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The American by Henry James: she had crossed the threshold of her boudoir he was at her side.
The room was now empty and offered a sufficient degree of privacy.
The old lady disengaged herself from Newman's arm and rested her hand
on the arm of the marquis; and in this position she stood a moment,
holding her head high and biting her small under-lip. I am afraid
the picture was lost upon Newman, but Madame de Bellegarde was,
in fact, at this moment a striking image of the dignity which--
even in the case of a little time-shrunken old lady--may reside
in the habit of unquestioned authority and the absoluteness of a
social theory favorable to yourself.
"My son has spoken to you as I desired," she said, "and you understand
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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 New Machiavelli by H. G. Wells: affect a tremendous and cultivated shyness and delicacy about
imperatives of the most arbitrary appearance. What ensues? What
did ensue with us, for example? On the one hand was a great desire,
robbed of any appearance of shame and grossness by the power of
love, and on the other hand, the possible jealousy of so and so, the
disapproval of so and so, material risks and dangers. It is only in
the retrospect that we have been able to grasp something of the
effectual case against us. The social prohibition lit by the
intense glow of our passion, presented itself as preposterous,
irrational, arbitrary, and ugly, a monster fit only for mockery. We
might be ruined! Well, there is a phase in every love affair, a
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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 Democracy In America, Volume 2 by Alexis de Toqueville: civil head of the family, but the oracle of its traditions, the
expounder of its customs, the arbiter of its manners. He is
listened to with deference, he is addressed with respect, and the
love which is felt for him is always tempered with fear. When
the condition of society becomes democratic, and men adopt as
their general principle that it is good and lawful to judge of
all things for one's self, using former points of belief not as a
rule of faith but simply as a means of information, the power
which the opinions of a father exercise over those of his sons
diminishes as well as his legal power.
Perhaps the subdivision of estates which democracy brings
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