| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Tom Grogan by F. Hopkinson Smith: enemies, she knew.
That night she sent for Nilsson to come to the house; heard from
him, word for word, of Quigg's effort to corrupt him; questioned
Patsy closely, getting the names of the children who had abused
him; then calling Jennie into her bedroom, she locked the door
behind them.
When they reentered the sitting-room, an hour later, Jennie's lips
were quivering. Tom's mouth was firmly set. Her mind was made
up.
She would fight it out to the bitter end.
VI
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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 Purse by Honore de Balzac: studies, Adelaide and her mother emboldened him to talk. The
indefinable nothings of their chat, animated by kind feeling,
naturally led Hippolyte to flash forth remarks or reflections
which showed the character of his habits and of his mind. Trouble
had prematurely faded the old lady's face, formerly handsome, no
doubt; nothing was left but the more prominent features, the
outline, in a word, the skeleton of a countenance of which the
whole effect indicated great shrewdness with much grace in the
play of the eyes, in which could be discerned the expression
peculiar to women of the old Court; an expression that cannot be
defined in words. Those fine and mobile features might quite as
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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 Black Beauty by Anna Sewell: and never for a long time saw the sky, or were able to stretch our legs.
The ship sometimes rolled about in high winds, and we were knocked about,
and felt bad enough.
"However, at last it came to an end, and we were hauled up,
and swung over again to the land; we were very glad, and snorted and neighed
for joy, when we once more felt firm ground under our feet.
"We soon found that the country we had come to was very different
from our own and that we had many hardships to endure besides the fighting;
but many of the men were so fond of their horses that they did
everything they could to make them comfortable in spite of snow, wet,
and all things out of order."
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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 Cousin Pons by Honore de Balzac: Any man less absorbed in his contentment, any man of the world, any
distrustful nature would have watched the President's wife and
daughter very narrowly on this first return to the house. But the poor
musician was a child, he had all the simplicity of an artist,
believing in goodness as he believed in beauty; so he was delighted
when Cecile and her mother made much of him. After all the
vaudevilles, tragedies, and comedies which had been played under the
worthy man's eyes for twelve long years, he could not detect the
insincerity and grimaces of social comedy, no doubt because he had
seen too much of it. Any one who goes into society in Paris, and knows
the type of woman, dried up, body and soul, by a burning thirst for
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