| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from A Distinguished Provincial at Paris by Honore de Balzac: "How do M. and Mme. de Rastignac manage to keep their son in Paris,
when, as we know, their income is under a thousand crowns?" asked
Lucien, in his astonishment at Rastignac's elegant and expensive
dress.
"It is easy to see that you come from Angouleme," said Mme. d'Espard,
ironically enough, as she continued to gaze through her opera-glass.
Her remark was lost upon Lucien; the all-absorbing spectacle of the
boxes prevented him from thinking of anything else. He guessed that he
himself was an object of no small curiosity. Louise, on the other
hand, was exceedingly mortified by the evident slight esteem in which
the Marquise held Lucien's beauty.
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Somebody's Little Girl by Martha Young: Bessie Bell thought that that was a very pretty tale that the Lady
was telling, but she did not know or understand that that tale was
about her. Then the Only-Just-Lady said, ``Sister Helen Vincula, it
will do you good, too, as well as this little girl to stay in the
high mountains.
Not until all of Bessie Bell's little blue checked aprons, and all
of her little blue dresses, and all of her little white petticoats,
and all of her little white night-gowns, and even the tiny old
night-gown with the linen thread name worked on it, had been put
with all the rest of her small belongings into the old trunk with
brass tacks in the leather, the old, old trunk that had belonged to
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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 A Straight Deal by Owen Wister: Revolution, went forward again until to-day the King of England has less
power than the President of the United States? I suppose everybody in the
world who knows the important steps of history knows this--except the
average American. From him it has been concealed by his school histories;
and generally he never learns anything about it at all, because once out
of school, he seldom studies any history again. But why, you may possibly
wonder, have our school histories done this? I think their various au-
thors may consciously or unconsciously have felt that our case against
England was not in truth very strong, that in fact she had been very easy
with us, far easier than any other country was being with its colonies at
that time. The King of France taxed his colonies, the King of Spain
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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 Alcibiades II by Platonic Imitator: is under some other guidance, will make, as he deserves, a sorry voyage:--
he will, I believe, hurry through the brief space of human life, pilotless
in mid-ocean, and the words will apply to him in which the poet blamed his
enemy:--
'...Full many a thing he knew;
But knew them all badly.' (A fragment from the pseudo-Homeric poem,
'Margites.')
ALCIBIADES: How in the world, Socrates, do the words of the poet apply to
him? They seem to me to have no bearing on the point whatever.
SOCRATES: Quite the contrary, my sweet friend: only the poet is talking
in riddles after the fashion of his tribe. For all poetry has by nature an
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