| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Sportsman by Xenophon: Caught in that case it must needs be; but the hounds will have work
enough to run the creature down.[15] The huntsman having seized the
fawn, will hand it to the keeper. The bleating will continue; and the
hind, partly seeing and partly hearing, will bear down full tilt upon
the man who has got her young, in her desire to rescue it. Now is the
moment to urge on the hounds and ply the javelins. And so having
mastered this one, he will proceed against the rest, and employ the
same method of the chase in dealing with them.
[13] {piesas}, "noosling, nestling, buried."
[14] "The blood runs cold."
[15] Or, "but it will give them a good chase; the dogs will have their
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Beast in the Jungle by Henry James: what he's afraid of--or not afraid of? I don't know THAT, you see.
I don't focus it. I can't name it. I only know I'm exposed."
"Yes, but exposed--how shall I say?--so directly. So intimately.
That's surely enough."
"Enough to make you feel then--as what we may call the end and the
upshot of our watch--that I'm not afraid?"
"You're not afraid. But it isn't," she said, "the end of our
watch. That is it isn't the end of yours. You've everything still
to see."
"Then why haven't you?" he asked. He had had, all along, to-day,
the sense of her keeping something back, and he still had it. 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 The Deputy of Arcis by Honore de Balzac: "But he has moved; didn't you know it?"
"No, indeed; where does he live now?"
This was poor luck; to ask information of a man who asked it of me
when I questioned him. As if to put be quite beside myself while I was
making these inquiries, I saw that damned dwarf in the distance
evidently laughing at me.
Happily for my patience and my curiosity, which, under the pressure of
all this opposition was growing terrible, a certain amount of light
was given me. A few days after my last discomfiture, a letter reached
me bearing the post-mark Stockholm, Sweden; which address did not
surprise me because, while in Rome, I had been honored by the
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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 Message by Honore de Balzac: as far as the threshold.
"Don't go, don't go!" called he. "Don't trouble yourselves in the
least," but he did not offer to accompany us.
We three--the canon, the housemaid, and I--hurried through the
garden walks and over the bowling-green in the park, shouting,
listening for an answer, growing more uneasy every moment. As we
hurried along, I told the story of the fatal accident, and
discovered how strongly the maid was attached to her mistress,
for she took my secret dread far more seriously than the canon.
We went along by the pools of water; all over the park we went;
but we neither found the Countess nor any sign that she had
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