| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from A Tramp Abroad by Mark Twain: ones did not mean anything in particular, in such a connection.
X always spoke English to Germans, but his plan was
to turn the sentence wrong end first and upside down,
according to German construction, and sprinkle in a German
word without any essential meaning to it, here and there,
by way of flavor. Yet he always made himself understood.
He could make those dialect-speaking raftsmen understand
him, sometimes, when even young Z had failed with them;
and young Z was a pretty good German scholar. For one thing,
X always spoke with such confidence--perhaps that helped.
And possibly the raftsmen's dialect was what is called
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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 Witch, et. al by Anton Chekhov: medicines.
"Were you an officer's servant?" Pavel Ivanitch asked Gusev.
"Yes, an officer's servant."
"My God, my God!" said Pavel Ivanitch, and he shook his head
mournfully. "To tear a man out of his home, drag him twelve
thousand miles away, then to drive him into consumption and. . .
and what is it all for, one wonders? To turn him into a servant
for some Captain Kopeikin or midshipman Dirka! How logical!"
"It's not hard work, Pavel Ivanitch. You get up in the morning
and clean the boots, get the samovar, sweep the rooms, and then
you have nothing more to do. The lieutenant is all the day
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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 Deputy of Arcis by Honore de Balzac: vague desire to show itself independent. Consequently, the last
election of Francois Keller had been disturbed by certain republicans,
whose red caps and long beards had not, however, seriously alarmed the
bourgeois of Arcis. By canvassing the country carefully the radical
candidate would be able to secure some thirty or forty votes. A few of
the townspeople, humiliated at seeing their town always treated as a
rotten borough, joined the democrats, though enemies to democracy. In
France, under the system of balloting, politico-chemical products are
formed in which the laws of affinity are reversed.
Now, to elect young Keller in 1839, after having elected his father
for twenty years, would show a monstrous electoral servitude, against
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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 An Historical Mystery by Honore de Balzac: squads of soldiers to guard the doors. The audience, standing below
the bar, was so crowded that persons suffocated. Monsieur de
Grandville, defending Michu, Bordin, defending the Simeuse brothers,
and a lawyer of Troyes who appeared for the d'Hauteserres, were in
their seats before the opening of the court; their faces wore a look
of confidence. When the prisoners were brought in, sympathetic murmurs
were heard at the appearance of the young men, whose faces, in twenty
days' imprisonment and anxiety, had somewhat paled. The perfect
likeness of the twins excited the deepest interest. Perhaps the
spectators thought that Nature would exercise some special protection
in the case of her own anomalies, and felt ready to join in repairing
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