| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The White Moll by Frank L. Packard: I handed you a rap about beating it with the empty money-belt
the night you croaked Deemer with an overdose of knockout drops
in the private dining-room up at the Hotel Marwitz, but you forget
that! I ain't for starting any argument about that. None of us
blames you. We thought the stuff was in the belt, too. And none
of us blames you for making a mistake and going too strong with the
drops, either; anybody might do that. And I'll say now that I take
my hat off to you for the way you locked Cloran into the room with
the dead man, and made your escape when Cloran had you dead to
rights for the murder; and I'll say, too, that the way you've played
Gypsy Nan and saved your skin, and ours too, is as slick a piece of
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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 Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne: nervous sensibility and a vast power of self restraint.
Notwithstanding his high native gifts and scholar-like
attainments, there was an air about this young minister -- an
apprehensive, a startled, a half-frightened look -- as of a being
who felt himself quite astray, and at a loss in the pathway of
human existence, and could only be at ease in some seclusion of
his own. Therefore, so far as his duties would permit, he trod
in the shadowy by-paths, and thus kept himself simple and
childlike, coming forth, when occasion was, with a freshness, and
fragrance, and dewy purity of thought, which, as many people
said, affected them like tile speech of an angel.
The Scarlet Letter |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from A Woman of No Importance by Oscar Wilde: good fortune. He is quite a PROTEGE of mine. And I am
particularly pleased that Lord Illingworth should have made the
offer of his own accord without my suggesting anything. Nobody
likes to be asked favours. I remember poor Charlotte Pagden making
herself quite unpopular one season, because she had a French
governess she wanted to recommend to every one.
LADY CAROLINE. I saw the governess, Jane. Lady Pagden sent her to
me. It was before Eleanor came out. She was far too good-looking
to be in any respectable household. I don't wonder Lady Pagden was
so anxious to get rid of her.
LADY HUNSTANTON. Ah, that explains it.
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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 Marriage Contract by Honore de Balzac: where they remained without expression; later, when he felt them to be
out of harmony with the maxims of the world, he could only think
rightly and act mistakenly. He was capable of fighting for a mere word
or look, yet he trembled at the thought of dismissing a servant,--his
timidity showing itself in those contests only which required a
persistent will. Capable of doing great things to fly from
persecution, he would never have prevented it by systematic
opposition, nor have faced it with the steady employment of force of
will. Timid in thought, bold in actions, he long preserved that inward
simplicity which makes a man the dupe and the voluntary victim of
things against which certain souls hesitate to revolt, preferring to
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